James Caldwell has had a unique career spanning the last fifty years. While a student at the Curtis Institute of Music he toured with the Philadelphia Orchestra to play assistant to his teacher, John de Lancie. Within the first weeks of his tenure there, de Lancie was taken ill and at the age of 21, Caldwell was performing as first oboe of the Philadelphia Orchestra. After graduation he joined the Soni Ventorum Wind Quintet based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. While there he recorded and toured with the Quintet, the Chicago Little Symphony, the Puerto Rico Symphony, the Casals Festival and the Peninsula Music Festival. He also participated in the Marlboro Festival for five years.

In 1964 Caldwell played with the National Symphony for a year before joining the newly formed and sadly short-lived Chamber Symphony of Philadelphia. The recordings that orchestra made for RCA remain cult classics and Boston Records is fortunate to obtain the Ravel and Ibert works from that archive.

Caldwell returned to the National Symphony for three years but when offered a teaching position at the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, he accepted in order to to pursue his many interests. He was part of the Oberlin Wind Quintet and faculty chamber orchestra and continued his interest in playing the viola da gamba, a stringed instrument used in renaissance and baroque music. In addition to his oboe studio he taught viol consort classes and played viol in the Oberlin Baroque Ensemble. He was persuaded to learn the baroque oboe and spent several summers in Vienna and Switzerland studying both baroque oboe and viola da gamba. The Couperin is a remarkable example of his abilities as he plays both instruments in different movements. He was soon in demand as a baroque oboist and played with many early music groups especially the Smithsonian Chamber Players.

As soon as Caldwell arrived at Oberlin he started planning for a summer program to teach baroque instruments and the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute was born. Although he retired from its directorship a few years ago, it has remained the premiere early music summer course for 33 years.

Throughout his career Caldwell has been intensely interested in musical instruments and has spent much time and energy making modifications in intonation and tone to the modern oboe. Many of these improved instruments are still sought after. He studied historical baroque oboes and viols all over Europe on a research grant and has amassed a world class collection of antique viols and oboes.

Caldwell’s principal job at Oberlin is, of course, teaching and his students are in orchestras and in teaching positions all over the world. He is passionate about passing on the styles, traditions and standards of the Philadelphia School started by Marcel Tabuteau in the early 20th century.

Caldwell also has a strong artistically creative side which has showed itself in the guises of bonsai, garden design, computer art, music composition, jewelry design and the recent completion of a very contemporary house, designed with much input from him. It showcases his interests in Art Nouveau and Asian antiques.

James Caldwell counts amoung his many mentors, influences and teachers: John de Lancie, Louis Rosenblatt, Stevens Hewitt, Marc Lifschey, John Mack, Ralph Gomberg, Harold Gomberg, Wayne Rapier, Laila Storch, Alfred Genovese and Marcel Tabuteau: Eugene Ormandy, Leonard Bernstein, Antal Dorati, Pablo Casals, Anshel Brusilov: Rudolph Serkin, Harold Wright, Marcel Moyse, August Wenzinger, Jurg Schaeftlein, and scores of others with whom he has been honored to work. His longtime musical and life partner has been his wife, Catharina Meints, a viola da gambist and cellist in the Cleveland Orchestra.

Shortly before his death, John de Lancie wrote, in reference to hearing this recording of the Aschaffenburg concerto: “It is truly impressive from every point of view. First, of course, the beautiful playing (such an inadequate word to describe first class musicianship and imagination) and the composition is, for my taste, the most impressive contemporary work for the oboe I have heard.”