Official Website: www.caliban.ca

Since their formation in 1993, The Caliban Quartet of Bassoonists has been surprising and delighting listeners around the world with their eclectic and sparkling performances and recordings. With the aim of giving the bassoons all the good bits, they have shamelessly performed their own arrangements of everything from Renaissance religious music to world music, jazz, and tangos.

Real composers have written fifteen contemporary pieces for the Quartet, and reviews of their concerts have included words like "inventive," "superb," and "bassoon." Critic Christopher Howell of the online magazine Classical Music Web writes "it's that rare thing; it's not "classical", it's not "light", it's not even "contemporary" ... it's MUSIC and could unite a wide range of listeners accustomed to snob one another's product."

Their first CD BassOOnatics! has sold over 5,000 copies since its release by CBC Records in 1997, making it one of the best-selling bassoon recordings of all time. It was re-released worldwide by BIS Northern Lights of Sweden in 2000.

Their second CD, Feast, was released by BIS in 2001 and features jazz pianist and composer Bill Douglas, Celtic singer Kate Crossan, and percussionist Mark Duggan. The American Record Guide chose Feast as their "Best of the Year" in its genre and said it is "worth buying no matter who you are"; BBC Music Magazine praised Feast for its "stunningly precise ensemble and tuning" and called it "essential listening for bassoonists. But great fun for the rest of us."

Their third CD, Caliban Does Christmas, was released in 2005 on the ATMA Classique label. It features 18 holiday favourites from the obscure to the everyday with such singers as Valdy, Mary Lou Fallis and Heather Bambrick, and such instrumentalists as Guido Basso, Alain Trudel, and Brian Barlow. The critic for the American Record Guide wrote: "I cannot imagine a more original Christmas album than this. certain to put a smile on your face."

In live performance, the Quartet has performed at such venues as the Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto, the Banff Festival of the Arts, the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival, and Stratford Summer Music. Their concerts have been broadcast nationally on CBC Radio and their recordings and arrangements have earned them a wide following among bassoonists from Ankara to Australia.

The Caliban Quartet is named after that strange little creature from Shakespeare's "The Tempest". Like the bassoon, Caliban is dark, earthy, sometimes humorous, and capable of more than you might think.

Biographies - The Caliban Quartet - Individuals

Fraser Jackson
Fraser Jackson joined the Toronto Symphony as Contrabassoonist in 1990. Previously, he was the Second Bassoon in l'Orchestre symphonique de Québec. In recent years he has performed and toured with the National Symphony Orchestra (Washington DC) and with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. In 2007, he played for eight weeks with the New York Philharmonic as a sabbatical replacement.

As a chamber musician, he has performed with such groups as Amici, the Network Winds, New Music Concerts, and Soundstreams. He has also performed at such festivals as The Laurentian Music Camp, le Festival de la Domaine Forget, the Festival of the Sound, and the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival. Besides the Caliban Quartet, Fraser is a regular member of Musica Franca, a group specializing in the French Baroque. Fraser also performs on period contrabassoons, having performed and recorded with Toronto's Aradia Ensemble and the Montreal Baroque Band. Fraser teaches bassoon and chamber music at the Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory of Music and at the University of Toronto. He has been a coach with the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra and the National Youth Orchestra of Canada, and has taught in the summers at le Festival de la Domaine Forget, the Camp Musical des Laurentides, and the Interprovincial Music Camp. In July, 2002, he was the artist-in-residence at the 5th International Contrabassoon Festival in Park City, Utah. Fraser also participates in a number of the TSO's outreach programs and enjoys helping audiences make friends with classical music. A native of Ottawa, he obtained his music degrees from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, and the University of Southern California in Los Angeles where he was one of the last students to graduate from the studio of Norman Herzberg.

Mathieu Lussier
Mathieu Lussier is one of the newest members of The Caliban Quartet, joining them in 2005. A graduate of the Montreal Conservatory, he is a busy freelance bassoonist based in Montreal, performing on both modern and historical bassoons. He has performed and recorded often with such groups as Arion, Tafelmusik, Apollo's Fire, and Les Violons du Roy. His recent solo recordings include the music of François Devienne and Vivaldi for the ATMA label and the music of Boismortier with Musica Franca on the MSR Classics and magnatune.com labels. He is currently bassoonist and Artistic Director of Pentaèdre, a professional woodwind quintet based in Montreal, as well as being the Artistic Director of Lamèque International Baroque Festival. A prolific composer with an engaging style, many of his compositions have been recorded by The Caliban Quartet and Nadina Mackie Jackson. He teaches modern bassoon at the Université de Québec à Montréal and baroque bassoon at McGill University.

Nadina Mackie Jackson
Nadina Mackie Jackson is one of the world's leading bassoon soloists. Her seven solo recordings feature repertoire ranging from the baroque and classical sonatas and concerti to contemporary lovesongs and showpieces. Current releases include Bacchanale and Romanza on the MSR Classics label with trumpeter Guy Few and the Toronto Chamber Orchestra.

".Jackson performs with effortless musicality, making the bassoon sound like a human voice." - The National Post

Performing frequently as a recitalist with piano, strings or alone in venues ranging from the outdoor Music Garden in Toronto to international recital halls and orchestral stages, more than a dozen new works have been written for her as a soloist and with artists such as Guy Few, Patrick Gallois, David Swan and the Caliban Quartet of Bassoonists. Heard regularly on CBC Radio, NPR and at such North American festivals as Domaine Forget, Scotiafest, Windfest, Grand River Baroque, the Elora Festival, and the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival, Nadina has been a featured soloist at the 2006 and 2007 conventions of the International Double Reed Society. In February, 2008, Guy and Nadina were featured in a special CBC broadcast recording featuring the premieres of solo concerti by Mathieu Lussier and a new double concerto written for them by Alain Trudel. In June, 2008, she will be a featured soloist with Guy Few in concerti commissioned for them with the American Wind Symphony.

An active chamber musician, Nadina has formed many chamber groups in Toronto and Montreal, including The Caliban Quartet of Bassoonists, Musica Franca, Duo Affinité and Three with fellow soloists Leslie Newman and Guy Few.

...the solo bassoon playing of Nadina Mackie Jackson...couldn't be more refined, quicksilver or swashbuckling. -Gramophone, August, 2006

As an orchestral musician, Nadina records and performs as principal bassoon of the Toronto Chamber Orchestra, the baroque ensemble Aradia, and often with Les Violons du Roy. The principal bassoonist of the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra for two years, Nadina spent the first decade of her career as a member of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, participating in more than 50 recordings on London Decca.

Nadina is currently on faculty at Wilfrid Laurier University, University of Toronto and the Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory of Music. A founding member of The Council of Canadian Bassoonists, Nadina is also on the Advisory Board for the Meg Quigley Vivaldi Competition.

www.nadinamackiejackson.com

Ursula Leveaux
Ursula Leveaux is one of Europe's most sought-after chamber musicians. She is currently the bassoonist of London's Nash Ensemble and Scotland's Hebrides Ensemble. In recent years she has also been an invited performer at the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont. She is also a prominent orchestral performer, having played principal bassoon in the Scottish Chamber Orchestra from 1987 to 2007. Currently, Ursula is frequently asked to appear as guest principal with major orchestras in Britain and throughout Europe. She is also in demand as a performer on Baroque and Classical Bassoon, playing regularly for John Eliot Gardiner, including taking part in his Bach Cantata Pilgrimage in 2000; she has also appeared at the Proms in London with Andrew Manze and the English Concert.

A former pupil at Chetham's School of Music, she furthered her studies with Martin Gatt in London, Brian Pollard in Amsterdam and also studied Baroque bassoon with Danny Bond in The Hague. While still a student in London she was the winner of the Shell-London Symphony Orchestra Scholarship and also became a member of the European Union Youth Orchestra working with conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Herbert von Karajan, Leonard Bernstein and Georg Solti.?? As well as regular appearances with the SCO, Ursula's solo work has included concertos with the London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and at the Mostly Mozart Festival at the Barbican in London with the famed Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields. ??A regular contributor to BBC's Radio 3, Ursula's CD recordings include the complete chamber music of Poulenc and of Saint-Saens, Beethoven Septet and Schubert Octet, all with the Nash Ensemble. She can also be heard on the complete recording of Chabrier Songs with Dame Felicity Lott and Graham Johnson. With the SCO she has recorded the Vivaldi Bassoon Concerto in D minor, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies' Bassoon Concerto, Strathclyde Concerto No 8, which was written especially for her, and the Mozart Bassoon Concerto released in 2006.