Yakama Native bassoonist Jacqueline Wilson helps Coeur d’Alene Symphony Orchestra to ‘give deeper meaning’ to ‘Celebrating Our Homelands’

In high school, Jacqueline Wilson’s first obsession was a tall, dark wooden figure. She and her bassoon were a match made in the stars, and they’ve been making music together ever since.

Wilson (Yakama) is now an assistant professor of bassoon at Washington State University’s School of Music, a big step up from her Southridge High School band class in Kennewick.

“It was always my favorite class” Wilson said, “because my friends were there, and my favorite teachers were, too.”

But she fondly remembers when her high school band director, Phil Simpson, introduced her to the bassoon as a way to help get scholarships to further her musical education.

“We jokingly refer to the bassoon as the scholarship-a-phone,” Wilson said.

Instruments like the bassoon, oboe and French horn are in high demand in college orchestras but are rarely played by students, who are more likely to get scholarships if they can play these rare instruments well.

“The bassoon is kind of an endangered instrument,” Wilson said, “so he thought that if I invested my time and energy into it, it could create opportunities in terms of funding my college education.”

Wilson’s opportunities didn’t stop at scholarships. She’s been asked to perform at many venues, including the Coeur d’Alene Symphony Orchestra’s season opening concert, “Celebrating Our Homelands,” this weekend, with music based around the composers’ homelands and cultures.

The idea came when Wilson approached Danh Pham, an associate professor of music at WSU’s School of Music, conductor for WSU’s Symphony Orchestra and conductor and music director of the Coeur d’Alene Symphony Orchestra.

“Here’s a person who is an advocate for her Native American homeland,” Pham said about Wilson, who is performing Bassoon Concerto by Navajo composer Connor Chee, alongside other composers known for their nationalistic styles, such as Ethyl Smith, C.M. Weber and Antonio Dvorak.

“So that’s how the theme of the concert, ‘Celebrating Our Homelands’ came about,” Pham said.

Following her opportunities at Eastern Washington University, Wilson began to hone her skills on the bassoon finding herself falling deeper in love with the instrument.

“I just really became obsessed and my desire to be a music educator shifted,” Wilson said. “I decided that college teaching, where you still get to have that mentor relationship, is kind of a deeper level of investment with the teacher and the student.”

She went on to get her master’s degree at Boston University’s College of Fine Arts and her doctorate at the University of Iowa, eventually making her way back to the Inland Northwest to work at WSU.

“I get to be in the Inland Pacific Northwest, my favorite place to be and do my favorite things and amongst colleagues who are friends, so it’s just the best of both worlds,” Wilson said.

Pham became one of those colleagues that Wilson came to befriend and admired.

“There really are few people that I respect more than Jacqui,” Pham said. “She is one of the most talented, one of the most gifted, one of the most inspirational people I’ve ever met in my life.”

This concert is meant to amplify the talent of Native American composers and performers, and what better place to do that than Coeur d’Alene.

“Danh believes in bringing this work to Coeur d’Alene,” Wilson said. “This is a nice gesture and representative of his enthusiasm for this piece.”

Wilson will be performing the Bassoon Concerto by Chee, which Wilson commissioned with the funding from an Artist Trust Fellowship.

Chee is acclaimed for combining classical music with Navajo ancestry.

After early success in his musical career and obtaining his master’s degree at the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music, Chee began to compose music with the intent of preserving his culture’s music.

“I started by taking some of the traditional songs that my grandfather would sing and arrange them for the piano; ultimately just taking elements of the culture and the music and composing my own pieces that were based on some of those elements,” Chee said.

His composition album, “The Navajo Piano,” won best instrumental recording at the 16th annual Native American Music Awards and his song “Beginnings” won best new age song.

While piano is his forte, Chee has composed many pieces for other instruments including the harp, oboe, violin and the bassoon.

While in college, one of Chee’s good friends was a bassoon player and he would accompany her on the piano. This gave Chee a reputation among bassoon players.

“Other people would ask to accompany me because I started to know the repertoire of the instrument, so I really got to know the bassoon very well.”

Chee’s talent for composition and his understanding of her instrument is what drove Wilson to commission him to compose the concerto, which she has performed at many other venues.

“The reception to the work has been amazing, and I adore playing it,” Wilson said. “It’s in this medium of a concerto that is for the classical musician the most elevated solo opportunity to get to stand in front of an orchestra as a soloist.”

Although the audience may see Wilson on the stage performing the bassoon concerto, it’s Chee who is being heard.

“I’m very excited about championing this piece. I believe tremendously in who Connor is as a composer and artist and his voice,” Wilson said. “It’s not my voice that I’ll be playing. It’s Connor’s voice that I’m interpreting.”

Wilson’s goal is to promote Native music, which Pham said is not heavily present in the classical music world.

“She is one of the great champions of Native American music,” Pham said, “and she’s done admirably not only as an advocate or as a commissioner of music, but as a performer of that music as well.”

Wilson has worked with composers like Chee and many other artists like Raven Chacon (Diné), Louis W. Ballard (Quapaw) and Jack Kilpatrick (Cherokee) to create her 2022 album “Works for the Bassoon by Native American Composers.”

She is also working on another album of bassoon works by Native American composers that will feature pieces from Chee, Joy Zickau (Seminole) and Michael Begay (Diné). Begay’s compositions will be performed by Wilson and her student Patrick Donoghue (Samish Indian Nation).

“I find my colleagues who are composing endlessly inspiring, and the truth is none of them need me,” Wilson said. “I feel like they bring an opportunity to me to lend significance and personal connection to the art that I’m creating.”

Wilson also volunteers at Lakeside Elementary School on the Coeur d’Alene Reservation by working with students in Rebekah Hendricks’ music class.

With help from Wilson, Hendricks has expanded this volunteer session to allow fifth-grade students to work with Coeur d’Alene Tribe musical experts like Norma Jean “Jeanie” Louie, Cheyenne Mechelle and Cece Curtis-Cook.

Wilson has been a part of the Coeur d’Alene community for some time. This concert isn’t about showing the community who Wilson is, it’s about the reason she does what she does.

“To be able to play music that I believe in and elevate those voices that I believe in just deepens the connection that I have with my audience that much more,” Wilson said.

“It gives it a deeper meaning and purpose to playing the bassoon for me.”