ON COMPETITIONS AND BIG FANCY MEN OF OBOE

With a bonus Pro-Tip

I played the oboe once at a competition in New York. It was run by the National Arts Club and called the “Tilden Prize.” I don’t know that it’s happened more than the one time I did it in 2002. I really know very little about it. There’s not much about it on the internet except in biographies of Liang Wang. Here are the things I remember about it:

The prize was $5000 and I really needed the money. I practiced hard, including learning a concerto by George Rochberg which I never played before or after this contest. I had a real nice red reed, and I still remember what it looked like. There were two rounds. The final round had three people and we all got prizes. The other two prizewinners were Liang Wang and Zheng Huang. For the life of me, I can’t remember who was second and who was third, but I won first.

My BFF was an oboist who didn’t make it to the finals but listened to them. When it ended, Wang and Huang were chatting with him and told him that I