Peter Kolkay, Bassoon

Biography

A gifted performer with extraordinary musicality and virtuosic artistry, Peter Kolkay was awarded
First Prize at the 2002 Concert Artists Guild International Competition, making him the first solo bassoonist ever to be so
honored in the 51 years since the inception of the CAG Competition. Mr. Kolkay was further recognized in May 2004 as the first artist on
his instrument to be awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant.

His summer 2004 calendar included chamber music concerts at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival, the Newport Chamber Music Festival, and
the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival. Mr. Kolkay’s 2004-05 season includes a special quintet version of “Peter and the Wolf”
at New York’s 92nd Street “Y,” a recital at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts
Institute in Utica, NY, and a tour of the west coast with the chamber ensemble Concertante.

Also this season, Mr. Kolkay will give the world premiere performances of a Concerto for Two Bassoons and Orchestra, written by American
composer and recent Rome Prize recipient Harold Meltzer, with the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra. This piece was commissioned to
encourage orchestras to feature Mr. Kolkay as a guest soloist in collaboration with their principal bassoonists. Performances are
planned with the Brooklyn Friends of Chamber Music and the Westchester Philharmonic in 2005-06.

In August 2002, Peter Kolkay was named Visiting Assistant Professor of Bassoon at West Virginia University. He recently completed his
doctoral studies at Yale University with Frank Morelli, and he earned a master’s degree from the Eastman School of Music, where he
studied with John Hunt and Jean Barr. A native of Naperville, Illinois, Mr. Kolkay also holds a Bachelor’s degree from Lawrence University in Appleton, WI.