Charles Ullery
Charles Ullery has been principal bassoonist of the SPCO since 1975. Prior to that, he was a member of the San Francisco Symphony and the Sixth Army Band at the Presidio in San Francisco. Many composers have written works for him, including Michael Daugherty, Daniel Sturm, Russell Platt, Jay Reise, William Wallace, Erika Foin, Akmal Parwez and Daniel S. Godfrey. Ullery has appeared at the Sarasota Music Festival, the Utah Festival, the Rockport Festival, the Aspen Music Festival, the Carnegie Hall Festival, with the SPCO as soloist, and, from 1976 to 2008 as principal bassoonist of the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra in Jackson, Wyoming. He spent the 1987-88 season as a faculty member at Oberlin College, the 2008-09 season as a (commuting!) visiting lecturer at Indiana University, and he enjoys being an affiliate faculty member at the University of Minnesota. Ullery graduated with honors in mathematics from the University of Arizona at age 19, and started graduate work in math at UCLA before entering the Army. His greatest pleasures include talking with his daughter, a math major at the University of Chicago, having coffee with his son, a violist in his third season with the Minnesota Orchestra, walking and biking with his wife, Elsa Nilsson, and playing online chess.