Bassoonist Matthew Rasmussen fancies himself a performer, composer, educator,activist, and musician extraordinaire.Ensembles Matthew has performed with professionally include the SacramentoPhilharmonic, Bakersfield Symphony, American Youth Symphony, and SolanoSymphony, where he performed the Weber Bassoon Concerto. Currently the principalbassoonist of the Santa Monica Symphony and a fellow with the Civic Orchestra of LosAngeles, Matthew recently completed his tenure as the principal bassoon fellow of theCalifornia Young Artists Symphony, culminating in a performance of Igor Stravinsky’sRite of Spring.Matthew is currently the bassoonist for Fivemind Reeds, a professional LosAngeles-based reed quintet striving towards presenting accessible and equitableclassical music performances. A strong advocate for music education, new music, andsocial justice in the arts, Matthew has commissioned new bassoon works and works forFivemind by professional composers, and actively includes pieces by women, BIPOC,and LGBTQIA+ composers in his repertoire. Matthew has a private teaching studio inWest Los Angeles, serves as the bassoon coach at Lincoln Middle School in SantaMonica, and is on the faculty at Moorpark College. He hopes to continue to expand thebassoon’s repertoire, and teach students not to fear the bassoon, but instead love andappreciate it as he does.Matthew holds bachelor’s degrees in music and linguistics from UC Davis, studyingbassoon with David Granger and composition with Laurie San Martin, and a Master ofMusic degree in bassoon from UCLA’s Herb Alpert School of Music, studying with JohnSteinmetz. At UCLA, Matthew performed Heitor Villa-Lobos’ Ciranda das sete notaswith the UCLA Philharmonia as a winner of the school’s concerto competition.