Richard J Chandler

I played in school bands and wind ensembles from 5th grade through Sr. High and attended multiple summer music camps every summer from 9th grade through 12th grade. My rock band days were in early high school. I studied saxophone with Ruben Haugen in Jr. High and Jerry D. Luedders, PhD, through high school and for 3.5 years while in college as a music performance major at St. Johns University and the College of St. Benedict.  Dr. Luedders later served as Chair of the California State University, Northridge Department of Music for over 17 years, whose program educates over 700 music majors.

I entered business prior to completing my senior year of college. After three decades of self employment and three grown children, I decided to pursue my aspiration for creating and performing music, despite the continuing high time demands of my private practice in natural healthcare.  In the fall of 2006 I began private lessons studying saxophone again with Richard Dirlam, PhD, an extraordinary teacher and performer who has recorded works of recent composers on the Innova label. I have played music of 20th century composers on saxophone as part of private recitals sponsored by Mr. Dirlam in Minneapolis, recitals at St. Cloud State University and as the baritone saxophone player in a saxophone quartet at St. Johns University in Collegeville, Minnesota. The repertoire included late 20th and 21st century compositions.

From fall of 2007 – summer of 2008, I played contrabassoon with the St. Cloud State University Wind Ensemble led by Richard Hanson, Ph.D.  (I was awarded a scholarship based on my saxophone playing in spring of 2007, but the wind ensemble was in need of a contrabassoon player, so we applied the scholarship money towards contrabasson lessons with Laurie Merz, with whom I have continued to study.  I now studying the regular bassoon (rather than contrabassoon) with her.

Currently, and for the past two years, I have studied with Ed Turley, PhD, chair of the music dept of St. Johns University and the College of St. Benedict, who gives me insightful feedback on compositions in process and who also is instructing me on piano.

My focus is on music composition with frequent performance of my own works as well as compositions by other composers. I am just completing the ‘wind band’ orchestration for DaVinci Transcending Time.