Conrad Cornelison joined the Jacksonville Symphony as Principal Bassoon in 2017, after spending two seasons with the Houston Grand Opera. Prior to his work in Houston, he held the Principal Bassoon positions with the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra and the Symphony of Southeast Texas. Other professional appearances include work with the Houston Symphony, the Houston Ballet Orchestra, Da Camera of Houston, the San Antonio Symphony, the Louisiana Philharmonic the Victoria Bach Festival Orchestra, the Lubbock Symphony Orchestra, and the Coastal Symphony of Georgia.
Mr. Cornelison was also recently appointed Adjunct Professor of Bassoon at the University of North Florida, where he began teaching during the 2017-2018 school year. In addition, in March 2017, Mr. Cornelison co-founded LC Double Reeds, a double-reed instrument supply company that designs and manufactures professional quality reed-making tools for oboists and bassoonists. LC Double Reeds’ products have quickly gained popularity across the globe and are available internationally through many of the top distributors in the industry.
Conrad holds degrees from Rice University and Juilliard, where he studied with Benjamin Kamins and Patricia Rogers, respectively. He is also a graduate of the Interlochen Arts Academy, where he studied with Eric Stomberg. His former festivals include the National Repertory Orchestra (2014), Pacific Music Festival, and the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival. He currently resides in Jacksonville, Florida with his wife, oboist Xiaodi Liu, and their dog, Toby.
Conrad states, “My summer with the NRO was extremely valuable to me. Aside from meeting many lifelong friends and colleagues, the musical demands of the festival gave me a good structure to begin implementing many of the lessons I had learned from my teachers over the years, and ultimately led me to develop an overall more efficient way of learning music and preparing repertoire. Freshly out of school with no job, NRO gave me the structure I needed to prepare for auditions and the professional world.”