Theresa Delaplain,
Oboist, Composer, Educator
Theresa Delaplain is an esteemed oboist and pedagogue, actively performing as a soloist, chamber musician and orchestral musician. She has commissioned, performed, and recorded several new works for oboe, and has been a champion of contemporary music. Delaplain is a founding organizer of the SHE Festival of Women in Music, a yearly international festival to promote music written by women. Delaplain has performed concerti with the Thai National Orchestra, the Fort Smith Symphony, the North Arkansas Symphony, the Arkansas Philharmonic, and all the University of Arkansas major ensembles.
Her recent solo album, Souvenirs, has earned glowing reviews in several publications. It was described in Fanfare as “...a fascinating mix of repertoire, performed to the highest of standards. This is a fabulously thought-out excursion into the oboe repertoire, beautifully recorded.” A description in The Double Reed proclaimed that “Delaplain’s mellow tone is beautifully suited to the melismatic phrases.”
Delaplain is also featured on a recent album of chamber music by Robert Mueller, Dream Gardens. Her album with the Lyrique Quintette has also been favorably received and reviewed, with reference to Delaplain’s “dark, chocolately oboe playing.”
Passionate about inclusion, Delaplain has worked to promote equity in repertoire, and has expanded her own solo and chamber repertoire to include many more works by women and BIPOC composers. She has both presented and been a panelist at several festivals of music by women, and has also recently resumed composing and performing her own works.
Delaplain has performed as concerto soloist with the Fort Smith Symphony, the North Arkansas Symphony, the Arkansas Philharmonic, the Thai National Orchestra, the LOU Orchestra, the Tulsa Youth Symphony, and the University of Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, Wind Symphony, and Chamber Orchestra. She currently serves as Principal Oboist for the Fort Smith Symphony, and the Arkansas Philharmonic, and is the past (retired) Principal Oboist of the Symphony of Northwest Arkansas and the Music Festival of Arkansas.
As a performer, Dr. Delaplain performs and/or tours regularly as a solo recitalist and chamber musician, and has given many performances of music written by women, including her own works. She is on the Arkansas Arts Council's Arts on Tour roster as oboist with the Lyrique Quintette. The quintet has toured Spain, Germany, Thailand, Canada, and throughout the United States, giving formal concerts, school concerts, master classes, clinics, and workshops. The quintet has recently released its Arrivals and Departures: Music of the Americas album on the Mark Classic label, and has also produced a CD entitled Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue. Delaplain has appeared at many International Double Reed Society Conventions, and she was a guest recitalist at the Southwest Contemporary Music Festival and Conference, in addition to performing at the College Music Society National and Regional Conventions.
A dedicated educator, Delaplain is on the faculty at the University of Arkansas, where she teaches oboe and music theory. She has taught at the Interlochen Center for the Arts Summer Arts Camp, the Midwest Double Reed Camp, and the Saarburg International Music Festival and School in Germany. She has been active as a clinician and adjudicator, including appearances at the Mid-South Double Reed Society Festival, Valdosta State University Double Reed Day, East Carolina Oboe Day, and the Arkansas All-State Music Convention. She has also written a popular oboe reed-making book, My Kingdom for a Reed!, and is the co-host of Something to Crow About!, a YouTube channel devoted to oboe reed-making.
Delaplain’s formal education included attending Macalester College for two years, where she studied with Rachel Brudnoy and Richard Killmer; earning a Bachelor of Music in Oboe Performance degree from the University of Michigan, where she studied with Arno Mariotti; earning a Master of Music in Oboe Performance from Bowling Green State University, where she studied with John Bentley; and earning a Doctor of Musical Arts in Oboe Performance from the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati, where she studied with Sara Bloom and had master classes with Robert Bloom.