Joan Browne (later known as Joan Shallin and now Joan Champie) studied with Tabuteau from 1952 to 1954 at his private studio on Ludlow Street. She grew up in Berkeley and Oakland, CA. In her own words: “The world of music was opened for me by my mother, who played the piano every day. When I was two, I asked her to teach me. Later, in elementary school, I started to play the violin in the school orchestra and continued this until high school, when I first heard the oboe. Immediate interest!”
This phone interview was recorded on March 13th, 2024.
Post Script:
After several years, Joan became a parent, and her musical life shifted. She gave oboe lessons privately at home, at the Wilmington Music School and at Peabody. She also freelanced when time permitted in Washington, DC, Philadelphia, and Wilmington. Many years later as sole supporter for her children, she went to college and began working in the field of deaf education until she retired. Along the way she learned and performed on baroque oboe (attending the Baroque Performance Institute at Oberlin), prepared and gouged cane for players to make their own reeds, and got a pilot’s license! At an advanced age, she took up the recorder and continues playing it for her own pleasure—but acknowledges that, after all these years, she dearly misses the oboe.
