Richard Strauss is one of my all time favorite composers.

His oboe concerto was written right at the end of his life.

It has these fluid melodies that just go on and on and on.

And there are parts of this concerto which remind me of some of his operas.

The acrobatic parts of the concerto sound like they're right out of Ariadne auf Naxos, and some of the sweet, beautiful, sensitive moments sound like they come out of Der Rosenkavalier.

I'm Nathan Hughes, principal oboe of the Minnesota Orchestra.

Before coming to Minnesota, I was the principal oboist of the Seattle Symphony.

The orchestra is wonderful, and they have a beautiful concert hall and coincidentally, the acoustician for that concert hall was the same as Orchestra Hall here in Minneapolis.

After the Seattle Symphony, I was the principal oboist of the Metropolitan Opera.

This was a very influential time for me and had a huge impact on my playing.

I think I learned how to be an effective communicator through opera.

Most music tells a story.

Every musician at some point has to understand and learn how composers use sound to show different emotions.

And that's really part of the fun of playing music, trying to figure out what was the composer going for?

What story are they trying to tell?

Coming to play with this specific orchestra, which happens to be in my hometown and returning to symphonic music, has been invigorating and gives me new things to look forward to every day.

The musicians here are extremely committed, and the audience also is so appreciative.

(Fei) When we sit in an orchestra in this caliber, you want to be inspired.

And he's someone that oftentimes he plays something, I'm sitting there listening to it and I forget to count my bars.

He's really one of the inspirations that we have in the orchestra, and I think it helps to bring up everybody's level of play.

(Nathan) I grew up admiring this orchestra.

I remember coming to concerts when I was younger.

To come back and get to play in that place that you remembered inspiring you and was the beginning of your thoughts of becoming a musician, it's very, it was very special.

I was born and raised in Saint Paul.

I am the youngest of four children.

There was a lot of music in my household growing up.

My dad played the bagpipe.

All my older siblings sang in choirs and they all played some instruments.

I dabbled a little bit in the violin when I was very young.

I was messing around percussion because my older brother was into that.

When I was seven years old, my parents dragged me kicking and screaming to audition for the Minnesota Boy Choir.

I was the youngest kid in that choir at that time, and I didn't know anybody, and it was very intimidating.

But that quickly changed and I started to hear how beautiful sound can be.

I started realizing that you were achieving something that was sort of greater than yourself.

And I found that really inspiring.

Just a couple of years after joining the choir, I started taking piano lessons at the MacPhail Center for Music.

Piano, for me, was a way to deepen my appreciation for music.

When I was 13, my voice started to change.

I could tell my years in the choir were numbered.

I made this observation at some point that the range of the oboe happens to be exactly almost to the note, the same range as my voice was.

I said, okay, this is a way to continue to sing.

When I was 14, my brother took me to Canterbury Downs, which is the horse race track near the Twin Cities.

We did this thing called the pick six.

You just pick the winner of the next six races and if you win it, you win the jackpot for the day.

So we know nothing about horses.

Random pick.

All six horses won and we were just blown away.

We could not believe it.

The best part about this is that my brother, you know, he could see how much I was into music.

He could see how much I loved the oboe already.

And so he used the money to buy me a great oboe.

Soon after starting the oboe, I joined the Greater Twin Cities Youth Symphonies.

I was in there for a couple of years, made wonderful friends, and I remember we went on tour and this is when this idea of a multicultural feeling and music started to sort of click with me.

Not only are we learning music by composers that are from all over the world, but we're also traveling all over the world with music.

It's an international language, and that was something that really stuck with me.

I currently perform and teach at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland and at the Pacific Music Festival in Japan, and I try to travel whenever I can, just personally as well.

When I was 16, I was accepted into the Lynn Conservatory of Music, and this was a jumpstart to an intense musical environment for me.

The school is very small, it's very selective, and everybody who's accepted goes tuition free.

This is a concept I can totally get behind.

After Lynn, I went to the Cleveland Institute of Music and then on to the Juilliard School, and I worked with some of the best teachers I could ever ask for.

After Juilliard, I started studying in the summer at the Marlborough Music Festival and school.

I still go to Marlborough to this day.

It's one of those places where you can go and fall back in love with music.

My first project after being hired here in Minnesota was recording Mahler's Third Symphony.

I remember that week when we got here and I turned around and behind us was the Minnesota Boy Choir.

There is a lovely part for a boy choir in the symphony, and it's something that I actually sang when I was in the choir.

I feel very fortunate to have grown up in a place that offers so much for young musicians.

When you're playing an instrument and there's a lot of repetitive motion, I think it's good to sort of work out the kinks.

And one thing I do when I exercise, when I'm learning a piece is I like to sing the piece.

So right now, while I'm getting ready for the Strauss, I'm doing a lot of singing while I swim.

There's something about getting the instrument out of your hand and just vocalizing it.

That helps me come up with a more natural interpretation for a piece.

One of my favorite practice break activities is juggling.

I love it because I can't think about anything else when I'm doing it.

It gets me in a different place so I can restart when I come back to practicing.

The composers use the oboe in a lot of different ways.

They often use us for extremely delicate, sensitive, touching moments.

They also like to use this to portray barnyard animals quite often.

So we have a little bit of everything in the orchestra.

One duty that we have as the principal oboe is tuning the orchestra.

The main reason for this is once the oboe player puts a reed into the instrument, we have the least amount of flexibility to change our pitch.

So where string players have tuning pegs and brass players have slides, they can adjust and flute players can move a head join in and out.

We have no mechanism for that on the oboe.

So if you want to play at a different pitch level, you need to use a different reed or you need to make a trip to the reed desk.

All oboist make their own reeds.

It's an extremely personal thing.

It's a craft that you have to hone over many, many, many years.

The end of the tip of a oboe reed is about half the thickness of a piece of paper.

And when we play a performance we are articulating, we're hitting the end of the reed with our tongue.

So reeds are short lived.

I spend hours and hours and hours and hours doing it myself now.

And I also spend hours and hours and hours doing this with my students.

Teaching is a very meaningful part of my life.

I feel privileged to have a life in music, and if there's a young person that would also like to have this path, I feel it's an honor to help them.

One of the things I love most about teaching is that you help the students grow their wings, and then you kind of watch them fly.

(Kate) Nathan was a very inspiring teacher.

I studied with him for six years at Juilliard.

He just has this way of really zoning in and listening to what you're doing and like, tailoring his advice so perfectly for the moment and what you need.

(Nathan) I teach at two of my alma maters, the Juilliard School and the Lynn Conservatory of Music.

I'm fortunate to work with some of the most gifted students.

Many of them go on to be leaders in the field.

By the time they're ready to graduate, many of them can give me a run for my money.

I usually know when they are making reeds that I secretly want to steal.

That's when I know they're ready to go.

I'm constantly searching for ways to grow as a musician.

Music is something that can enrich people's life, and that is not only as a performer, but it's also as a listener.

This is something that's so important to protect and to pass on.

And it's something that I can't imagine the world without.