Oboist Abigail Bracken developed a love of music alongside her twin sister Sophia, a clarinetist. Over collaborations across the last five years, the Bracken sisters have performed works by Daniel Dorff, Arthur Berger, and Marion Bauer for this instrumentation. She is dedicated to expanding the known repertoire of clarinet and oboe duets. Abigail has taken matters into her own hands and arranged a number of works for oboe and clarinet. Three of these works—Waltz from Sleeping Beauty, The Christmas Story, and O Come, O Come Emmanuel—were published by TrevCo Music in 2023, and she plans to publish more duets throughout 2024.

Abigail is a proponent of increasing LGBTQ+ representation and visibility in classical music. As a member of the inaugural International Pride Orchestra in June 2023, she premiered Steven Luksan’s Quintet in a performance at Queer Arts Featured and played in the orchestra’s premiere performance of Loud! by Jimmy Bellido Lopez at the San Francisco Conservatory. At the Jacobs School of Music, she participated in the workshop presentation of Swimming in the Dark, a new opera chronicling the lives of two gay men in 1980s-era Poland in the turbulent decline of communism based on the book by Tomasz Jędrowski. Bracken hopes to continue to shine a spotlight on queer performers and composers throughout her career.

Bracken has a passion for performing music that innovates the tradition of classical training and draws people together. As a soloist, she has performed with the Jacobs School of Music (JSoM) University Orchestra on Reena Esmail’s RE|Member for live and pre-recorded solo oboe, a production that united the orchestra with the school’s audio-visual team in creating the final live performance. Bracken is committed to taking these innovations beyond the concert hall and into the community. At the Decoda Chamber Music Festival, she developed and implemented an interactive performance of Francis Poulenc’s Trio for Oboe, Bassoon, and Piano for an auditorium of 50 second-grade students, allowing them to actively engage in the process of creating and interpreting music. Bracken’s involvement in community work dates back to her monthly performances at the Court House Cultural Center in Stuart, FL, where she volunteered her time for the Sunset Concert Series organized by Dr. Marie Jureit-Beamish. Concertgoers were treated to an immersive experience of visual art accompanied by the live performances of young musicians in the area.

Praised by her mentors and peers for her leadership, Bracken participated in the Indiana University oboe studio’s mentorship program for reed-making and teaching courses on instrument adjustment during her time as a student. She is a recipient of the Jacobs School of Music Premier Young Artist Scholarship. As principal oboist of the JSoM Wind Ensemble, University Orchestra, and Chamber Orchestra, she has organized sectionals and maintained open communication with the conductors to ensure performances of the highest quality over a vast range of repertoire, from Maslanka’s Symphony No. 2 to Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker.

Bracken received her Bachelor of Music from Indiana University in May 2024, where she studied with Linda Strommen and Roger Roe. Past mentors include Carrie Fox, Martha Scherer-Alfee, and Emily Beare. Outside of her musical passions, Bracken enjoys traveling around the world to see historic sites and reading fantasy to stimulate her imagination.