Oboist
BIOGRAPHY
Abigail Hawthorne holds a Masters degree in Oboe Performance and Literature from the Eastman School of Music (2020) and both a Bachelor of Music in Oboe Performance and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Southern Methodist University (2018). Her primary teachers include Richard Killmer, Erin Tuomi Hannigan, David Matthews, Megan Blauvelt Heuer, and Geoffrey Burgess (Baroque oboe).
Hawthorne holds the Oboe II / English horn position with the Shreveport Symphony Orchestra (Shreveport, LA) as well as the Richardson Symphony Orchestra (Richardson, TX), McKinney Philharmonic Orchestra (McKinney, TX) and the Allen Philharmonic Orchestra (Allen, TX). She is also a section oboe player with the Dallas Winds (Dallas, TX). She held the third oboe and English horn position with the Wichita Symphony Orchestra (Wichita, KS) for the 2017-2018 season, performed with the Music in the Mountains Festival Orchestra (Durango, CO) in the July 2023, 2022, 2018, and 2016 seasons, and has participated in the American Institute of Musical Studies (Graz, Austria), Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Institute (Toronto, Canada), Sarasota Music Festival (Sarasota, FL), National Repertory Orchestra (Breckenridge, CO), and Eastern Music Festival (Greensboro, NC).
Hawthorne is also an associate musician with The Dallas Opera (Dallas, TX) and has performed with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra (Fort Worth, TX), New World Symphony Orchestra (Miami Beach, FL), Symphoria (Syracuse, NY), Orchestra of New Spain (Dallas, TX), Plano Symphony Orchestra (Plano, TX), and the Dallas Chamber Wind Ensemble (Dallas, TX).
She has performed as a featured soloist with the Shreveport Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of New Spain, Nolensville High School at the Tennessee Music Education Association (Nashville, TN), and has an upcoming soloist engagement with the Richardson Community Band.
In addition to performing, Abby enjoys sharing the joy of music with students and maintains a studio of middle to high school oboists. She also works as administrative manager with the Orchestra of New Spain, a Dallas-based ensemble specializing in Spanish baroque and contemporary Hispanic music.
Abby also values the importance of bringing together inventive ideas in science and the arts. She has a personal interest in research concerning music performance anxiety and received a research grant from SMU to interview professional classical musicians about their experiences of music performance anxiety and, specifically, the environments that worsened their feelings of anxiousness. This is a fascinating field that still has much to be explored, and Abby is eager to promote further research about performance psychology that can benefit musicians, professional and amateur alike.