What is Bassoon?

BASSOON is the CUMS Orchestral Fixers system. It comprises a set of mailing lists, for instrumentalists and singers, to assist concert organisers in finding players. Anyone can use this system, and we hope it will be helpful. It is designed to be quick, and simple to use. The acronym BASSOON stands, recursively for: 'Bassoon Assists Search for Superior Orchestral Numbers'. Yes, there is a bassoon-bassoon list!

I am a musician/singer, and I'd like to be on the list

Great! Please select the appropriate mailing list below, and join it. Then, hopefully you will receive messages about forthcoming concerts inviting you to perform. The Bassoon system is intended for Cambridge University musicians, however it is not exclusively limited to such, and if you live in Cambridge and would like to get involved, please do join.

I am organising a concert, and I want to find players or singers

Then you are in the right place. Select the relevant list, and send it an email. Then, anyone interested will reply to you. Please ensure that you include all the relevant details.

The mailing lists

The system uses GNU Mailman, and the great advantage of this is that you can control your own list subscription; you don't need to ask a list administrator to do anything. It's very easy to use. Here are the lists. If we haven't got a list that you need, please ask us!

Instrument Mailing List
Woodwind  
Flute (and Piccolo) bassoon-flute
Oboe (and Cor Anglais) bassoon-oboe
Clarinet (Bb,A,E,Bass etc) bassoon-clarinet
Bassoon (and Contra-Bassoon) bassoon-bassoon
Strings  
Violin bassoon-violin
Viola bassoon-viola
'Cello bassoon-cello
Double Bass bassoon-double-bass
Brass  
Trumpet (Bb,E,Cornet) bassoon-trumpet
Trombone (Tenor, Bass etc) bassoon-trombone
French Horn bassoon-french-horn
Tuba bassoon-tuba
Euphonium bassoon-euphonium
Saxophone (all) bassoon-saxophone
Other  
Percussion (all types) bassoon-percussion
Piano bassoon-piano
Organ bassoon-organ
Harpsichord bassoon-harpsichord
Harp bassoon-harp
Conductor bassoon-conductor
Choral Singers  
Chorus: Soprano bassoon-chorus-soprano
Chorus: Alto bassoon-chorus-alto
Chorus: Tenor bassoon-chorus-tenor
Chorus: Bass bassoon-chorus-bass
Solo Singers  
Soloist: Soprano (and Mezzo-soprano) bassoon-soloist-soprano
Soloist: Alto bassoon-soloist-alto
Soloist: Tenor (and Countertenor) bassoon-soloist-tenor
Soloist: Bass (and Baritone) bassoon-soloist-bass

Privacy and Spam

List information is visible only to other list members. If you should wish to unsubscribe, please go to the list homepage above.

Hopefully, there won't be any spam, since we have not published the list email addresses in a harvestable form, but have munged the addresses.

Contact us

Please contact the CUMS webmaster, here if necessary. (But please don't send subscription/unsubscription messages here: this process is automatic, and can be done from the relevant list page above.)

About Bassoon

Bassoon was originally set up for CUMS by Richard Neill. It was inspired by the orchestral fixers lists that used to be run by CUMC, but have now fallen into disuse.

The name 'Bassoon' and the acronym was suggested by Jonathan Monroe. It is the twin of the CUMS TIMPANI Instrument hire system. However, it was a hard decision: we nearly named the sytem 'Horn' (Helping Orchestras Reach Necessities) or 'Trombone' (Trombone: Registry of Musicians, Bringing Orchestral Nirvana Electronically). The original plan was to be 'Viola' (Viola: Instrumental Online List Association), but we realised that no-one would take it seriously!

Thanks are due to the SRCF and GNU.