GABRIEL BEAVERS (principal bassoon) is the Associate Professor of Bassoon at the University of Miami Frost School of Music. He also performs with Nu-Deco Ensemble and is principal bassoon for both the Florida Grand Opera and Palm Beach Symphony. Beavers also serves on the faculty of both the Eastern Music Festival and Sewanee Summer Music Festival.
Prior to joining the faculty of the Frost School of Music, Beavers was on the faculty of the Louisiana State University School of Music and was principal bassoon with the Baton Rouge Symphony. Formerly a bassoon fellow with the New World Symphony, he was also principal bassoon with the Virginia Symphony and acting principal bassoon with the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra and the Jacksonville Symphony. Beavers has also served as second bassoon in the Music in the Mountains Festival Orchestra in Durango, Colorado and began his orchestral career as acting second bassoon with the Milwaukee Symphony. Other prior faculty appointments include the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Music and the Tennessee Valley Music Festival.
In addition to his orchestral and teaching activities, Beavers maintains an active schedule of solo and chamber performances. He has appeared as a soloist with The Symphonia (Boca Raton, FL), Virginia Symphony, Baton Rouge Symphony, Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra, Frost Wind Ensemble, Ensemble Ibis, Chesapeake Bay Wind Ensemble, Greater Miami Symphonic Band, LSU Symphonic Winds and the Louisiana Sinfonietta. He has given recitals throughout the United States and at international festivals in England, Brazil and Japan. In 2021 Beavers won the American Prize Ernst Bacon Memorial Award for the Performance of American Music for his published recording of Charles Norman Mason’s Swagger for Amplified Bassoon, Brass Quintet, and Two Percussion (available on Beauport Classical) and has also recorded two well-reviewed solo albums on Mark Records: A Quirky Dream and Gordon Jacob: Music for Bassoon. Beavers received his BM from Boston University School of the Arts and his MM from Southern Methodist University School of the Arts.