Deb Stevenson has been a freelance oboist in the Chicago area for over thirty years. She is founder and oboist with the Metropolis Quartet (oboe, violin, viola, cello). She is also a member of the Metropolis and Lake Forest Symphonies, and is co-founder of the Mozart Journey - a collaboration with the St. Charles Singers and orchestra. Other groups frequently performed with are the Milwaukee Symphony, Ars Viva Orchestra, Handel Week Festival and the Apollo Chorus. Ms. Stevenson can be heard on recordings of the Strauss Alpine Symphony and Stravinsky's complete Firebird with the Chicago Symphony; I Know Where I'm Going and Christmas in St. Charles with the St. Charles Singers; The Soundstage Sessions with Stevie Nicks, Messiah with Apollo Chorus; numerous recordings for GIA music publishing company and the Milwaukee Symphony; and Music from the Bolivian Rainforest with the Metropolis Symphony.
As a contractor, Ms. Stevenson has hired performers for the St. Charles Singers concerts, recordings and Mozart Sacred Choral Works series - the Mozart Journey, as well as for the Heartland Voices and Canterbury Singers. In her work for the Paramount Arts Center, the Rialto Square Theater and the Chicago Theater, she has provided musicians for artists such as Bernadette Peters, Bob Newhart, Marie Osmond, Smokey Robinson, Eddie Vedder, Video Games Live and Mannheim Steamroller. She has provided orchestras for the Paramount Arts Center’s highly acclaimed, in-house-produced Broadway musical series.
In addition to teaching at Wheaton College, and Vandercook and North Park Universities she also maintains an active private teaching studio. Her students have gone on institutions such as Eastman, Interlochen Arts Academy, DePaul, Roosevelt, the University of Illinois, and the President’s Own Marine Band.
Ms. Stevenson has studied oboe and English horn at the University of Louisville, Northern Illinois University, Boston University and Northwestern University, where she received her Master of Music degree. She has studied with Grover Schiltz, Ray Still, Marion Gibson, Carl Sonik and Larry Thorstenburg.
Metropolis Quartet, Lake Forest Symphony, Wheaton, Vandercook North Park College