Over many years of playing the bassoon, Dr. Benjamin Bradshaw has developed interests in nearly all things related to the instrument. His main performance interests are in contemporary and electronic music for bassoon. He also maintains a strong interest in technology and how it can improve practicing, analysis, and pedagogy. He currently teaches at Southern Utah University and Utah Tech University.
From a young age, he was inspired by the playing of Paul Hanson and Mike Rabinowitz with electric bocals and effects pedals. Bradshaw had the opportunity to explore this aspect of the bassoon at Southern Utah University, where he played bass trombone and bari sax parts in the Jazz Ensemble. This extended to the Basketball Athletic Band, where he enjoyed playing popular tunes like "Crazy Train", "Frankenstein", "Smoke on the Water", "Are You Gonna Be My Girl?" and more with a small combo. Also during this time, he performed in a bakery with a rock combo called Limited Edition. Recently, he premiered a new electric bassoon concerto by Keith Bradshaw entitled In the Beginning.
On the classical side of bassoon, Bradshaw has played in numerous ensembles across the country, including wind ensembles, woodwind quintets, orchestras, and solo recitals. As a soloist, he won the Halverson Young Artist Concerto Competition with the Orchestra of Southern Utah in 2009 and again in 2014, performing movements from Wanhal's Concerto for Two Bassoons and Mozart's Concerto for Bassoon.
As a researcher, Bradshaw has recently been interested in the Humdrum Toolkit, and its applications in analysis. He used this to give evidence for Steve Larson's theory of musical forces in the bassoon concerti of Vivaldi. He hopes to be able to continue using the Humdrum toolkit to study bassoon repertoire. Future projects include technological tools to improve practicing, and better ways of finding new repertoire. His dissertation, entitled A Bassoonist’s Guide to Interactive Electroacoustic Bassoon Music, explored performance practice issues of interactive electroacoustic music and created an extensive annotated bibliography of the available repertoire for electronic bassoon.
Bradshaw received his Doctorate in Bassoon Literature and Performance from Indiana University, with minors in Music Theory and Music History and Literature. Previously, he studied at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, where he received his Masters of Music in Bassoon Performance. At the undergradsuate level, he graduated from Southern Utah University summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Music in Bassoon Performance, and a Bachelor of Science in Pure Mathematics. His principal teachers have been William Ludwig, Saxton Rose, and Virginia Stitt.