BASSOON

ROBERT CARR is a retired District Judge from Michigan. Robert formerly played bassoon for the University of Michigan Band under the baton of William Revelli and graduated from that University in 1950. He holds a bachelors degree from University of Michigan, a Master’s degree from the University of Pittsburgh and a JD degree from the Detroit College of Law. Fifty years later, Robert began playing again as an avocation. He shares life with his wife Joan and has four adult sons.

THOMAS DRANEY has been a teacher, administrator, representative for Catholic schools to NYS legislature, and the founder/director of Christ House in the South Bronx, for political asylum cases and victims of torture. He came to Florida in ’99, worked in ministry with migrants and returned to playing bassoon after a hiatus of forty years. He officially retired in September, 2006, and enjoys playing in many groups.

STACEY GOSSMANN (Principal Bassoon) started playing the bassoon in junior high school. She went to the Cleveland Institute of Music to get her Bachelor of Music degree, and then she went to Germany to live with her sister. While there, she played part time in an orchestra and tried to get into an orchestra full-time, but she was not lucky in that respect. She came back to Cleveland to get her Master of Music degree, and while she was there, she took a job at Xerox. She stayed there for fifteen years, until she had a brain aneurysm, ending her work at Xerox. Since the aneurysm, she has steadily worked back into music, and now she plays with the Edison College Band and Orchestra, as well as the Gulf Coast Symphony Orchestra. She also plays in a number of ensembles, and she plays some concerts on her own.