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Willard Elliot served the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as principal bassoon from 1964 until 1996.
Jim Steere
For more than thirty years, Willard Elliot (1926-2000) was the foundation of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s wind section, serving as principal bassoon from 1964 until 1996. Also a composer, Elliot was co-winner of the 1961 Koussevitzky Foundation Award for his Elegy for Orchestra, and his output included two symphonies; multiple concertos; arrangements of works by Glinka, Granados, Grieg, Mozart, Ravel, Scriabin and Weber; and numerous chamber works for a variety of instrument combinations.
On March 19, 1966, Elliot was a soloist — along with his colleagues Clark Brody, Dale Clevenger, Jay Friedman, Adolph Herseth, Donald Koss, Donald Peck and Ray Still — in recording sessions for Martin’s Concerto for Seven Wind Instruments, Timpani, Percussion and String Orchestra for RCA under Jean Martinon’s baton. On February 4, 1984, Elliot recorded Mozart’s Bassoon Concerto with Claudio Abbado conducting for Deutsche Grammophon.
“He was very collegial from the first time we worked together,” commented William Buchman, assistant principal bassoon. “He encouraged me to play with real gusto and engagement. It made me feel like my contributions to the Orchestra’s sound were important.”
“Willard Elliot was a fascinating man and wonderful musician,” according to John Bruce Yeh, assistant principal clarinet. He was “a true renaissance musician: arranger, composer, educator, as well as orchestral bassoonist par excellence.”
“Willard was always an upbeat man with a smile on his face,” remembered Michael Henoch, assistant principal oboe. “He was, of course, a marvelous musician, a consummate master of the bassoon, but he had many other interests including geology, gardening, and researching his family’s genealogy. . . . He had a huge presence in the CSO woodwind section, and I was honored to perform with him."
Read more: Remembering Willard Elliot
Willard Elliot’s Two Sketches for Woodwind Quintet—performed by Jennifer Gunn, Michael Henoch, John Bruce Yeh, William Buchman, and Oto Carrillo—can be heard on CSO Sessions Episode 19, available from May 6 until June 4, 2021.
Elliot also can be heard as part of the continuo in the January 1990 London recording of Bach’s Mass in B Minor, under the baton of Sir Georg Solti and featured on the May 11, 2021, From the CSO’s Archives: The First 130 Years radio broadcast.
