Kenneth Munday

Kenneth Munday was appointed Principal Bassoon of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra by Sir Neville Marriner in 1976, the youngest principal player at the time.

Marriner encouraged other principals in the orchestra to form a baroque ensemble and Musical Offering was created. The ensemble performed concerts throughout the United States, Puerto Rico and Canada. Three recordings for Nonesuch resulted featuring music by Vivaldi, Telemann and JS Bach and his sons.

Ken was a founding member of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra Winds which recorded Mozart wind serenades and Janacek’s Mladi for Nonesuch and the Mozart and Beethoven Piano and Wind quintets for Delos. Munday was also featured on the solo bassoon part in Richard Strauss’s Duet Concertina with clarinetist David Shifren for Nonesuch. Ken has performed at the Marlboro Music Festival, Chamber Music Northwest, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival and the Oregon Bach Festival, recording Bach’s Brandenburg concertos, orchestral suites and many other works including the Grammy Award-winning Credo by Christof Pendereki.

Munday recorded Luciano Berio’s Sequenza XII for Naxos, a solo bassoon piece featuring extended techniques including double circular breathing, keeping the sound uninterrupted by breathing for 19 minutes. An active studio musician, Munday has played on over 950 film and TV projects including Titanic, Toy Story, Cars, Back to the Future, Jumanji, Wreck-It Ralph, and Star Wars. He has recorded with Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Mariah Carey, Neil Young and many others.

Ken has performed on baroque and classical bassoons with Music Angelica, Philharmonia Baroque, and the Portland Baroque Orchestra. His main teachers were Bill Douglas, Norman Herzberg and Brian Pollard.