Maxine Woods Shimer

Shimer, Maxine

Maxine Shimer (b Woods). Bassoonist, teacher, b Toronto, d Pittsburgh July 1995. Shimer began bassoon studies at 14 with Frank E. Dennis at the Toronto Conservatory of Music. There she won a national gold medal. In the early 1930s with her father (Oliver Woods, oboe and french horn), William Greenwood (english horn), and Robert T. Higginson (heckelphone), Frank Dennis (bassoon), and James Milne (contrabassoon), she was a member of the Canadian Double Reed Sextet. At Juilliard on scholarship 1934-7, she was the school's first woman bassoon student. She was the first woman woodwind player (1934-6) in the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and was the soloist in its performance 26 Mar 1935 of the second movement from the Mozart Bassoon Concerto. She also appeared as a soloist in the Promenade Symphony Concerts. After graduating from Juilliard she played in the New York Women's Symphony and other orchestras. She taught bassoon and piano at Montclair State College, New Jersey, and at the Westfield Studio as a representative and instructor for the Trinity College of Music, London. Later, she resided in the Pittsburgh area.

See also Johnstone, John Francis