Sol Schoenbach

Bassoonist Sol Schoenbach was born in the Bronx in 1915. After graduating from the Institute of Musical Art in New York, he joined the CBS Orchestra at the age of 17. At the age of 22, he became one of the youngest first chair players in the history of the Philadelphia Orchestra under Stokowski and Ormandy. Besides teaching most of the principal bassoonists in this country, Sol Schoenbach instigated the founding of the Philadelphia Woodwind Quintet and the Philadelphia Orchestra pension plan and was the director of the Settlement Music School from 1957 until 1981.