About

Greetings! My name is Davey Hiester. I’m a musician and educator from West Philadelphia, based primarily in New Haven, CT, by way of Austin, TX. I play bassoon and contrabassoon, conduct, teach, and compose/orchestrate. I’ve been a musician for as long as I can remember, and am excited to share some of my journey with you here. 

I am the Second Bassoonist/Contrabassoonist, Assistant Conductor, and Business Director with Orchestra New England, in addition to teaching bassoon at Choate Rosemary Hall and Neighborhood Music School. I also maintain my own private bassoon studio and hold the Morse Postgraduate Fellowship with the Yale University Music in Schools Initiative, where I conduct the New Haven All-City Orchestra. 

As a bassoonist, I’ve performed with over two dozen professional ensembles around the country, including the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, Princeton Symphony Orchestra, Salt Marsh Opera, Reading Symphony, Symphony in C, Johnson City Symphony Orchestra, Brazos Valley Symphony, Lubbock Symphony, Victoria Symphony, Density512, and the United States Air Force Band of the West. In 2023, I performed as a soloist with the Brevard Music Center Orchestra after winning the Jan & Beattie Wood Concerto Competition. Now, I’m looking forward to performing Daniel Dorff’s Concerto for Contrabassoon with Orchestra New England in March 2027. I’ve performed at venues across the country and internationally, ranging from Carnegie Hall to West Philly Porchfest.

In teaching, I am passionate about cultivating students’ curiosity through a mindset of abundance and continuous growth, always combining instrumental skills with music theory, ear training, score study, and a holistic approach to the broad horizons of musicianship. I work with students ranging from beginning middle schoolers to college undergraduates, as well as adults beginning or returning to music. In addition to teaching bassoon, I was previously a Teaching Fellow at Yale University, teaching and designing multiple undergraduate music theory courses, and an Undergraduate Teaching Assistant at The University of Texas, co-teaching music theory and audio engineering courses. I’ve also held teaching positions at Brevard Music Center and The Music School of Delaware.

As a conductor, I am driven by thoughtful programming, concert curation, storytelling, and local collaboration. I’m the Music Director of the Center City Chamber Orchestra in Philadelphia, which I founded in 2018. We focus on representing Philadelphia through our personnel and repertoire, building community by removing financial and cultural barriers for audiences, and concertizing with an untethered outlook on the orchestra’s role in society. I was also the Music Director of the Lab Orchestra at the University of Texas for two years, bringing the same commitment to narrative-driven programming and highlighting works by UT composers. I am equally passionate about reenlivening lesser-known historical repertoires and advocating for new music, having conducted ten world premieres and commissioned three new works for bassoon.

I am a composer and orchestrator of over 20 self-published works, including collaborations with contemporary composers like E. A. Alexander and Kevin Charoensri. Through orchestration and instrumentation, I have also adapted musicks of earlier voices, such as Margaret Bonds, Arnold Schönberg, Francis Poulenc, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Alberto Orefici, Gabriel Fauré, W. A. Mozart, and Josquin de Prez. I see orchestration as a form of communion with the source material: a way of becoming closer to those it originated from, bringing it to new life on the page and in performance. I’m a big advocate for contrabassoon in chamber music and chamber orchestra repertoire, for the low, rich textural dimension it opens, especially in smaller ensembles. 

My research interests and writing span a variety of topics including lesser-known historical repertoire, the orchestra’s place in society today, Baumol’s Cost Disease, and the juxtaposition of seemingly distant bodies of music. I am a strong believer in original program notes, having written all of my own for all concerts I’ve conducted and recitals I’ve given.

In addition to music, I’m an avid barbecue pitmaster and the founder of 215512BBQ. Cooking largely in the Central Texas idiom, I frequently incorporate influences from the cuisines of Philadelphia, South Texas, Mexico, and Colombia into my craft. Since 2021, I have been doing pop-ups, private catering events, and backyard get-togethers on a regular basis. 

I hold degrees from the School of Music at Yale University (MM) and the Butler School of Music at The University of Texas at Austin (BM), and extend gratitude to my mentors Holly Blake, Mark Gigliotti, Kristin Wolfe Jensen, Frank Morelli, Kevin Noe, and Douglas Kinney Frost. I am a member of Central High School’s 277th class, was in the inaugural class of the Philadelphia Orchestra All-City Fellowship, and am a proud alumnus of the Middle School at Girard Academic Music Program. I play on a Fox 201 from 2005.

I also enjoy DJing, reading, and spending time with family and friends. I love surfing in Rhode Island, as well as hiking, playing pickleball and basketball, and watching Philly, UT, and Yale sports. Go Birds!