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Steve Vacchi

Associate Dean of Faculty Affairs
Professor of Bassoon and Chamber Music
Music
vacchi@uoregon.edu
Phone: 541-346-3748
Office: 364 Frohnmayer Music Bldg
Research Interests: Winds, Bassoon, Chamber Music, Music Performance
Steve Vacchi is professor of bassoon and Associate Dean of faculty affairs at the University of Oregon School of Music and Dance. His teachers have included C. Robert Reinert, Rebecca Eldredge, Matthew Ruggiero, K. David Van Hoesen, Stephen Maxym, Frank Morelli, and William Ludwig. He holds degrees in performance from the Eastman School of Music (B.M. with high distinction/Performer’s Certificate), The Hartt School (M.M.), and Louisiana State University (D.M.A.), where he held a Board of Regents Fellowship. He also studied at the Yale School of Music. His dissertation is a “how-to” for bassoonists on fluttertongue and singing while playing; it focuses on five solo works requiring both techniques. A member of Pi Kappa Lambda and Phi Kappa Phi honor societies, he was formerly a faculty member at Wichita State University (KS) and the Brevard Music Center (NC). He has presented masterclasses at high schools, conservatories, and universities throughout the United States, South Korea, Thailand, and China, and served as a faculty sabbatical replacement at Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music in 2014-15.
 
Vacchi’s recording credits include 32 releases of wide-ranging solo, chamber, and large ensemble repertoire from J.S. Bach to the present. He has performed in 26 countries throughout Europe, the Americas, Asia, the Middle East, and the Caribbean. In the U.S., Vacchi has performed with The Florida and Sarasota Orchestras, Santa Fe ProMusica, the Rhode Island, Tulsa, Rochester, and Los Angeles Philharmonics, and the Saint Louis, New World, Baton Rouge, Colorado, Honolulu, Kansas City, Santa Rosa, New Haven, and Wichita Symphony Orchestras. He served as acting contrabassoonist/utility bassoonist of the Oregon Symphony during the 2019-20 season and continues as a regular extra with them. A member of the Eugene Symphony Orchestra, Oregon Bach Festival, and the Oregon Wind Quintet, he has been a featured soloist in works by Haydn, Mozart, Strauss, J.S. Bach, Vivaldi, Lindpaintner, Jurriaan Andriessen, Michael Daugherty, Walter Hartley, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, Walter Mays, James Stephenson, and Peter Hope. An advocate of new music, Vacchi has performed 530 recently composed works, including 170 premieres. Vacchi has performed on many historical double reeds and continues to play heckelphone, contrabass sarrusophone, and contrabass clarinet professionally.
  • DMA 1997, Bassoon Performance/Theory minor, Louisiana State University
  • MMus 1993, Bassoon Performance, The Hartt School
  • BMus 1990, Bassoon Performance, Eastman School of Music

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