The position of principal oboe is currently open in three of America’s major orchestras, and in several other second- and third-tier ensembles as well. When you consider how many aspiring professional musicians there are in the world, and how few high-profile positions available, the current surfeit of jobs has to be considered mannah from heaven for oboists. “The sudden raft of openings appears on the surface to be a confluence of health problems and retirements. But there is also a generational change under way, as the recent musical descendants of the father of American oboe playing, Marcel Tabuteau, who died in 1966, leave the scene.”