David Sogg

Co-Principal Bassoon

 

David Sogg joined the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra as co-principal bassoon in 1989.  Raised in San Jose, California, he started his bassoon studies with Jerry Dagg of the San Francisco Opera. A graduate of Harvard College with a major in German literature, Sogg  studied with the Boston Symphony’s Sherman Walt, Günter Piesk of the Berlin Philharmonic, and finally Norman Herzberg, to receive a Master of Music from the University of Southern California.  

Following two summer fellowships at the Tanglewood Music Center and before joining the Pittsburgh Symphony, David Sogg served as principal bassoon of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Omaha Symphony and Chamber Orchestra.  He has appeared on numerous occasions with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Minnesota Orchestra, the San Diego Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Pittsburgh Chamber Music Project.  A proponent of new classical music, he has performed contemporary American, Chinese, French, and Russian pieces, including both “Andy Warhol Sez,” a piece written for him by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Paul Moravec, and “The Lunch Counter” written for him by opera and chamber music composer Susan Kander. 

David Sogg has performed recitals, chamber music, and concerti in Charlotte, Pittsburgh, San Jose, Tallahassee, Tempe, and the Seattle area, as well as at Duquesne University Mary Pappert School of Music where he is a member of the performance faculty with students from Bulgaria, Venezuela, and across the United States. Sogg has given master classes in Boston, San Jose, and the People’s Republic of China, as well as Dresden, Germany, where he spent his 2010-2011 sabbatical year. For his sabbatical project, he worked with musicologists to create a critical edition of a large cache of late baroque wind concerti housed in the Saxony State Library and then performed two of the concerti with musicians of the Phoenix Symphony. His article on Baroque music in the Court of Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, was published in 2011.