Infernal Fagotti was founded in a practice room with no windows and one working light bulb, when four bassoonists discovered they could not be stopped, mostly because nobody could figure out how to ask them to leave. They ride four abreast, double-reeded and leather-cased, and they have been banned from at least three green rooms for “excessive low register.” Their colors are a patch showing a winged bocal crossed with a reed knife, earned only after a prospect survives a full season of contrabassoon cues and a road trip in a car with four instrument cases and no legroom. They have no headquarters, but they have been seen hanging around the reed-making table at 2 a.m., scraping cane in grim silence. Legend says they once outran a brass section to the post-concert buffet, though the brass section disputes this and the shrimp platter cannot be reached for comment. They live by a simple code: never rush, never apologize for the low B-flat, and never, ever let the oboes tune them. Local conductors know to clear the podium when they roll into town, because Infernal Fagotti do not follow the baton so much as escort it.
Tonight they ride again.
2026 Dramatis personae
Maria Yuin – bassoon
Maria was five when she first laid hands on a piano. But in high school, rummaging through the band director’s closet where no respectable student belonged, she found her true ride: a bassoon, long, dark, and misunderstood. Nobody picks the bassoon. That’s exactly why she did.
She earned her B.A. in music performance at the University of Maryland, College Park, learning the craft from Kenneth Pasmanick and Linda Harwell of the National Symphony Orchestra. Through the ’90s she worked the circuit in Washington DC and Madison, WI, before pointing her handlebars west in 1998. In the Bay Area she rode with Redwood Symphony for many seasons, stepping out front for a few concertos.
Then she vanished, sixteen years off the grid, hiding out in software companies and raising a family. Some said she’d gone straight for good. They were wrong. Maria’s back in the saddle with Infernal Fagotti, and she’s never been happier to be causing trouble on stage.
Jordan Terry – bassoon
Raised on the sun-scorched streets of Huntington Beach, Jordan’s journey began when he picked up one of the orchestra’s most unruly machines that nobody else was brave enough to tame, the bassoon. To fund this new lifestyle, he studied mathematics at BYU-Idaho before earning a master’s in Industrial Engineering from Texas A&M.
By day, Jordan navigates the chaos of airports, running simulations and analyzing the paths of aircraft trekking their taxiways. By night, he rides with whatever ensemble can handle him, leaving a trail of low notes and questionable intonation in his wake. A veteran of countless musical crews, he’s spent the last three years riding with Infernal Fagotti.
Theo Clarke – bassoon
Born at a very young age, Theo came into the world with two goals in mind: kick ass and make reeds, and they just ran out of cane. Brought up in the harsh and mildly temperate hills of Santa Rosa, Theo didn’t learn the Bassoon for recreational habits; they needed it to survive. However, it was not until Dr. Yueh Chou discovered Theo’s talent for their real training to begin. Now, after defeating recitals and performances, Theo has defeated the challenges known as the bachelors of music performance, and is free to be unleashed onto the world. In between slaying epic solos for Orchestras around the bay, Theo hones their craft of bicycle repair and enjoys lazy days off with their roommate and their cat Greg.
Mia Stormer – contrabassoon
Mia has always been drawn to the unusual and slightly outrageous. The bassoon was nice, but when she discovered the gloriously oversized tangle of plumbing that is the contrabassoon, it was as if the heavens had opened and the mothership was calling her home. She purchased her first contra before she’d ever played one, only to discover, to her horror, that she had no idea where to put her fingers. After a moment of reflection, she flipped it right side up and has been keeping questionable company in the low end of the orchestra ever since.
Armed with sixteen feet of wood tubing and a dubious sense of restraint, Mia has spent decades lurking in the back rows of orchestras throughout the Bay Area and Southern Oregon. Along the way, she earned an MAT from Notre Dame de Namur and spent years teaching band, tutoring students with dyslexia and dyscalculia, and introducing music to preschoolers with volatile emotions and questionable impulse control. The latter experience is widely considered excellent preparation for working with conductors.
With Infernal Fagotti, Mia can finally explore just how much musical mayhem can be unleashed by a gang of bassoon nerds who should probably know better.