Stephen Hammer has enjoyed a varied career as oboe soloist, chamber and orchestral musician, teacher, instrument maker, and music administrator. Since relocating to LA in 2016 he appears regularly as principal oboist of Musica Angelica, Tesserae Baroque and the American Bach Soloists; he also serves as principal recorder for the Metropolitan Opera, and for thirty years was principal oboist of the Boston Handel and Haydn Society, among other groups. He is artistic director of the Blue Hill Bach Festival in Maine, and a regular participant in SoCal’s Baroque Music Festival Corona del Mar and the Aston Magna Festival in Massachusetts.

Stephen Hammer has taught at Bard College, Indiana University, and other distinguished schools of music. He was a co-founder of the New York Collegium and served as its first artistic director, and also contracted orchestras and choruses for the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Mark Morris Dance Group, and the Castle Hill Festival. He can be heard on more than 200 solo, chamber, obbligato and orchestral recordings for Decca l’Oiseau-Lyre and other labels. He also collaborates with the instrument-maker Joel Robinson in designing and building replicas of historical oboes, is an accomplished website designer, and is an enthusiastic if untalented tennis player.