Overview
Andréa E. Banke recently retired as Principal Oboe with the Wichita Symphony Orchestra and Solo Oboe with the Lieurance Woodwind Quintet, after a career-ending nerve injury. After 15 years as Professor of Oboe at Wichita State University, she now serves as Assistant Professor of Theory and Instructor of Chamber Music and Literature at WSU. The Wichita Eagle has hailed her playing as “lush,” “exquisite,” and having “impeccable style and execution.” Prior to coming to Kansas, Ms Banke held the Principal Oboe Position of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra in New York. Andréa has frequently performed as Guest Principal Oboe of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. Ms Banke appeared with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Kansas City Chamber Orchestra, the Heidelberg Opera Schlossfestpiele in Germany, the Camerata Philharmonica Bohemia in Czech Republic, and was a recitalist with members of the Los Angeles Mozart Orchestra.
From 1997-2001, Ms Banke performed over 500 woodwind quintet recitals, educational concerts, and outreach classes as solo oboist of the Dakota Wind Quintet -- appearing in diverse venues from a Sioux Indian pow wow to a high -security prison in Nebraska.
Ms Banke earned degrees from the Eastman School of Music under Richard Killmer, summa cum laude, and the University of Minnesota under Kathryn Greenbank. The Argus Leader Newspaper (Sioux Falls) has called her playing “a thread of gold”, and the International Double Reed Society Journal as “[showing] lots of flair, verve and technique.”
Ms Banke’s dedication to chamber music extends to the Czech Republic, where she has spent summers as oboe instructor of AMEROPA, an international chamber festival taking place in the historic city of Prague.