Michael Harley

bassoon, voice, keyboards

michaelharley@alarmwillsound.com

I grew up in Goshen, Indiana, a land of cornfields and maple trees. I also grew up Mennonite, which, as far as music goes, meant: a capella, four-part hymn singing (you can't beat it!) My parents forced me to take piano lessons for a time; they said some day I'd thank them. Thanks, Mom and Dad. Anyway, at some point in late junior high, my band director looked at all four of us oboe players and asked if one of us would like to play this unusual instrument, the bassoon. I thought it looked pretty cool and definitely much more masculine - I was the lone male oboist, after all - so I decided to give it a try, spent a week in the practice room with a fingering chart and joined the band, I believe, on a piece called "Greasy Kid's Stuff".

(following school at Goshen College and Western Michigan U. and the Cincinnati Conservatory and Eastman, from which it sometimes appears I may never escape...)

(following some fun times like playing music in Lucca, Italy in the summers, and traveling in the Dominican Republic and Morocco and Europe and South Africa, and meeting my lovely wife Jennifer Parker, a flutist...)

(following a job teaching various things like theory and history and woodwinds and bassoon and conducting a wind ensemble at my alma mater, Goshen...)

to the present: where Jen and I live in Columbus, OH and I teach various things like bassoon, music theory, and woodwind pedagogy at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, not too far from the cornfields and maple trees where I grew up. And I keep working on that doctorate from the school in Rochester. Spare time (does that exist?) might find me traveling, hiking, reading, or, if at all possible, on and in the water. And, yes, I play in this crazy ensemble called Alarm Will Sound (but I guess you knew that). And we play music that might well be termed "Greasy Grown-Up Stuff", have a great time, and I feel very lucky and proud to be a part of it all.

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