Margaret Marco
- Associate Dean for Performance
- Professor of Oboe
- Woodwinds
- **KU Safe Zone Member
Contact Info
1530 Naismith Drive
Lawrence, KS 66045-3013
Personal Links
Biography —
D.M.A. University of Illinois; M.M.E. The University of Iowa; B.M. Northwestern University
The Kansas City Star describes Margaret Marco’s oboe playing as “wistful and utterly engaging,” while theDubuque Telegraph Herald reports “Marco’s deft and lilting expression …was often reminiscent of a soprano’s operatic aria.”
Dr. Margaret Marco is Professor of Oboe at the University of Kansas School of Music and principal oboist of the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra. She performs frequently with the Kansas City Symphony and is a founding member of the NAVO Trio, an oboe, violin, and piano trio dedicated to the performance, discovery, and commissioning of music by women composers. Margaret began her professional career as the principal oboist of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Maracaibo in Venezuela. Since then, her many solo, chamber and orchestral performances have taken her to a variety of prestigious international venues in locations including the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory of Music in Milan and the distinguished Central Conservatory and China Conservatory in Beijing where she performed and presented master classes. She served as Chair of the IDRS Fernand Gillet-Hugo Fox Oboe Competition from 2009-2017 and holds degrees from Northwestern University, The University of Iowa and the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana.
A strong advocate for new music for her instrument, Dr. Marco has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Mid-America Arts Alliance, the Wunsch New Music Fund, and the University of Kansas to perform and record new chamber works by American composers. She can be heard with the KU Wind Ensemble performing Copland’s Quiet City on the NAXOS label and on NAVONA Records performing Gorgeous Nothings by Ingrid Stölzel and Bells and Grass by Juliana Hall. Other recordings include her solo CDs, Hidden Gems: Oboe Sonatas of the French Baroque,Vols. I&II, Still Life: New Music for Oboe, Oboe d’amore, and English horn, Allégresse; music for flute, oboe and piano and Fresh Ink, which received positive reviews in American Record Guide, Chamber Music Today and the International Double Reed Society Journal. She is heard frequently performing on Kansas Public Radio. In 2016 she commissioned A Siege of Herons, a concerto for oboe d’amore and strings by KU composition professor Forrest Pierce, which she premiered with the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra. She recently traveled to Mexico, where she performed concerts and taught classes at several prominent institutions, including the Escuela Superior de Música y Danza de Monterrey, Universidad Veracruzana’s Facultad de Música, Instituto Superior de Música del Estado de Veracruz, Conservatorio de Música de Celaya, and Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Latin America's largest university. Last summer, she performed as a guest soloist with the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional in Guatemala City. She is a Marigaux Artist and performs on a Marigaux M2.
Research —
My research involves performing in nationally and internationally recognized performance venues as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral musician. I have prepared modern performance editions of several 18th-Century French sonatas for oboe and an annotated bibliography of all the 18th-Century French sonatas for oboe that are stored in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, France. My other projects include recordings and performances of historically underrepresented composers.
Grants Awarded:
General Research Fund, University of Kansas. (2019)
Awarded funds to record and perform two chamber works of Luis Salgado. Performances to take place in Quito and Guayaquil, Ecuador.
General Research Fund, University of Kansas. (2016)
Awarded funds to commission new works for oboe by female composers.
Mid-America Arts Alliance grant. (2016)
Commissioning A Siege of Herons, Concerto for Oboe d'amore, Strings, and Percussion by F. Forrest Pierce. World premiere performance on April 28, 2016. Performed by Margaret Marco, oboe d'amore soloist with the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra in Fairway, KS
James and Lola Faust Chamber Music Grant. (2011)
For performances in Costa Rica and Puerto Rico to present recitals and master classes with the trio Allégresse.
National Endowment for the Arts; American Masterpieces Chamber Music grant. (2008)
Music of American Composers for Flute, Oboe, and Piano: A Kansas Tour.
Major Performances:
Kansas City Chamber Orchestra, Oboe soloist, Concerto in A minor, Antonio Vivaldi, Kansas City Chamber Orchestra. (2021).
Kansas City Chamber Orchestra, Oboe d’amore soloist, Concerto in G Major, G.F. Telemann, Kansas City Chamber Orchestra. (2020).
Orquesta Sinfónica de la Unversidad de Costa Rica, Triple Concerto by Sergio Delgado, San Jose, Costa Rica, (2019)
International Center for Music, Park University, Oboe Soloist, Vaughan Williams Oboe Concerto, (2019)
International Double Reed Society, Tampa, Fl, Performance with the Kassia Trio, (2019)
Sunflower Music Festival, Washburn University, Topeka, KS, (2014-2019)
International Double Reed Society Conference. The Circular Ruins for oboe, percussion and computer. World Premiere, Bryan Kip Haaheim, Tambito Caprichos for oboe, clarinet, bassoon and percussion European Premiere, Sergio Delgado, Moguls European Premiere. Romanza (1995), Venicio Meza, Granada, Spain, Palacio de Congresso. September 1, 2018.
Conservatorio di Musica Giuseppe Verdi, Kansas Virtuosi Chamber Music performance, Milan, Italy (2018).
NAVO Chamber Orchestra, Soloist, Concerto in C Minor for oboe and violin, Orchestral Suite No. 1, Bach, Kansas City, MO, (2018).
Colorado Symphony Orchestra Bolero, Ein Heldenleben, Maurice Ravel. Richard Strauss., Denver,
CO, Boettcher Concert Hall. (2020).
Recordings:
“Chamber Music of Luis Humberto Salgado,” Naxos Records, 2022
“Hidden Gems, Oboe Sonatas of the French Baroque, vol. II” 2022
“Wider than the Sky,” trios for oboe, oboe d’amore and English horn by Ingrid Stölzel and Stephanie Berg, Equilibrium Records, 2021
“Still Life; New Music for Oboe, Oboe d’amore and English horn” 2019
“A Concert of Music by Members of Connecticut Composers, Inc.” Navona Records, 2018
“Ingrid Stölzel: The Gorgeous Nothings,” Parma Records, May 2017
“Hidden Gems, Oboe Sonatas of the French Baroque,” 2010
Additional:
• Recording artist for Naxos, Navona, Parma, and Equilibrium recording labels
• Co-host of Reed Talk, a podcast featuring leading American oboists