Johanna Cox Pennington
Professor of Oboe at the Baldwin Wallace University Conservatory of Music, internationally acclaimed soloist and teacher.
She joined the faculty of the Baldwin Wallace University Conservatory of Music in Ohio in 2023 as Professor of Oboe, where she serves as program coordinator for the woodwind, brass and percussion areas and teaches oboe, chamber music and woodwind literature. Prior to this appointment, she served for eleven years as associate professor of oboe at the Louisiana State University School of Music and was a member of the Breckenridge Music Festival Orchestra for seventeen seasons.
A graduate of Northwestern University and the Eastman School of Music, Pennington was chosen for Eastman’s Freiburg Exchange Program, which took her to Germany to study with renowned soloist Heinz Holliger at the Freiburg Musikhochschule. She won her first concerto competition in her hometown of Rochester, New York, at the age of seventeen and appeared as a soloist with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. Of her solo debut at Carnegie Hall in 2005, the New York Concert Review wrote: “…her technique is absolutely first rate, Miss Cox played with beautiful tone, even in the highest register and at the loudest dynamic. She is an oboist that any orchestra would be fortunate to have on its roster.”
Pennington has recorded on Albany Records with the Prairie Winds and the Musical Arts Quintet, and in 2018 Albany released her first solo album, Orion Nocturne, featuring five newly commissioned works for oboe and English horn, including a concerto recorded with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Carlos Miguel Prieto.
She has performed with many notable orchestras, including the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony. Pennington has taught oboe clinics, given master classes, and appeared as concerto soloist and recitalist at major universities, taking her in recent years to Europe, South America, Asia and throughout the United States. “Johanna will have a positive impact on the world of music, on those who study with her, as well as those who hear her perform,” notes the Eastman School of Music.
