Nicolasa Kuster

joined the faculty of University of the Pacific Conservatory of Music in Stockton, California in the Fall of 2008. From 2000 to 2008, Ms. Kuster was Principal Bassoonist of the Wichita Symphony Orchestra, on the faculty at Wichita State University’s School of Music, and bassoonist with the Lieurance Woodwind Quintet. She is a Founding Director of The Meg Quigley Vivaldi Competition, an international competition for young women bassoonists from the Americas. http://www.mqvc.com

Ms. Kuster has held positions in the Tulsa Philharmonic Orchestra, the Rhode Island Philharmonic, the Virginia Symphony, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and has performed as a soloist in the USA, Panama, Italy, and Kazakhstan, as well as at the International Double Reed Society conferences in Buenos Aires and Texas. She has served as both Principal and Second Bassoon of the New Hampshire Music Festival for six seasons. She has been a guest artist at the Anchorage Music Festival, Ameropa Chamber Music Festival and Solo Course in Prague, Czech Republic and spent five seasons with the Spoleto Festival, Italy, making multiple recordings on the Chandos label with the Spoleto Festival Orchestra. Kuster was Visiting Professor of Bassoon at the Oberlin Conservatory in Fall of 2003.

Ms. Kuster holds a B.M. and B.A. from Oberlin College and Conservatory where she studied with George Sakakeeny. She did graduate work at DePaul University studying with Bruce Grainger while she was a member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago. She has received additional instruction from bassoonists including William Waterhouse, Richard Svoboda, Nancy Goeres and Willard Elliot.