Bassoon and Contrabassoon Sections
Rebecca Noreen, bassoonist, was a winner of the Artist International Competition in New York City with the Kammer Quintet, which appeared in two recitals in Carnegie Recital Hall. She graduated with a M.M. from Manhattan School of Music and from Western Washington University, where she obtained a B.A. and B.E.
Ms. Noreen performs with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra New England, Eastern Connecticut Symphony, Rhode Island Philharmonic, and the Connecticut College Chamber Players. She also is a former member of the New Haven Symphony and the United States Coast Guard Band. She performs with many choral groups in the area, such as the Stonington Choral Society, Con Brio, the Mystic River Choral, and the First Church of Christ in Wethersfield. Her chamber music ventures include an oboe, clarinet, bassoon trio called the Prism Trio that performs extensively in New England, the Connecticut College Woodwind Quintet, the Laurel Double Reed Ensemble and the Hop River Chamber Players. She is an instructor of bassoon at Connecticut College and the Thames Valley Music School, and was instructor at the University of Rhode Island for 17 years. She also has attended the Waterloo Festival and played with members of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra under the conductor Gerard Schwarz. In Graz, Austria she performed in the Opera Orchestra of the American Institute of Musical Studies. Her instructors include Stephen Maxym, Jane Taylor, Mark Eubanks, Matthew Ruggiero, Bruce Grainger, and Gregg Henegar.
Other: She is an avid skier, gardener, and vegetarian cook. She also bikes, does yoga and pilates. She lives in Stonington with her clarinetist husband, Jonathan Towne and her two children ages 12 and 14.