Timothy S. McGovern

Associate Professor of Bassoon

BME and MM (bassoon performance), Northwestern University (student of L. Hugh Cooper, Sherman Walt, Willard Elliot, and Wilbur Simpson).

In addition to his appointment as Associate Professor of Bassoon at UI, Timothy McGovern is currently Principal Bassoonist with the Illinois Symphony Orchestra and a member of the Prairie Winds Woodwind Quintet and IQ (Illinois Woodwind Quartet). For seven years he was Associate Principal Bassoon of the Montréal Symphony Orchestra and Principal Bassoon of the Montréal Symphonette and McGill Chamber Orchestra. During the spring term of 2008, Professor McGovern was a Visiting Associate Professor of Bassoon at Indiana University.

He has also performed with the Chicago, Boston, Toronto, Delaware, Grant Park, and Ravinia Festival Orchestras, among others. Professor McGovern has performed with many legendary musicians such as Itzhak Perlman, Cecilia Bartoli, Isaac Stern, Joshua Bell, Yo-Yo Ma, Mstislav Rostropovich, Kiri Te Kanawa, Leonard Bernstein, Sir Neville Marriner, Charles Dutoit, and Seiji Ozawa, among others. He has recorded approximately 30 CD's of diverse orchestral and chamber music repertoire with London/Decca and other recording companies.

He was the Overall Winner of the Performers of Connecticut International Solo Competition, which included 117 participants. The following year he was named the Co-winner of the East/West Artists International Solo Competition in New York City (165 participants). He is the recipient of two Tanglewood Fellowships.

Professor McGovern has performed at numerous national and international conferences and festivals, on many public radio and television programs, and on chamber music series in 25 of the 50 states. He performed his New York City solo recital debut at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in 1987. Tours with orchestras and chamber groups have taken him throughout North and South America, Europe, and the Far East. Robert Sherman, in a The New York Times review, said, "Timothy McGovern is quite an extraordinary talent. His playing was indeed consistently musical and compelling: It had expressive warmth, a natural feeling for line and phrase and, when needed, amazing agility."

The most important goal for me as a teacher is to guide the development of my students’ musical growth, so that they may reach their maximum potential as both musicians and teachers. This means finding their own artistic voice. It means learning to project their ideas successfully to an audience and to also orally express these ideas to others. Students must conquer the demands of technique, rhythmic accuracy, flexibility of intonation and tone, projection of sound, dynamic control, and reed making. I strive to inspire and teach my students by example, and to be a positive, candid, and supportive mentor. I demand that students in the bassoon studio are also positive and supportive of each other. I endeavor to expose my students to a wide variety of contrasting ideas. Recent guest artists have included bassoonists from the Concertgebouw Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, the Hungarian Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Cleveland Orchestra.