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NANCY RUMBEL is a professional composer, recording artist, performer and teacher. Her primary instruments are oboe, English horn, double wooden ocarinas, clay ocarinas and keyboards. She is well known for her work with the GRAMMY award-winning duo Tingstad & Rumbel. She has also performed with and/or recorded on releases with the Paul Winter Consort, Susan Osborn, Benjy Wertheimer, David Michael, David Lanz, Robin Spielberg, Cris Williamson, Lydia McCauley, Linda Yapp, and countless others. She composed and played the theme music for "BirdNote" a project heard on 250 public radio stations.
Her latest 2022 appearances are on projects released by Lydia McCauley and Benjy Wertheimer, and soon to be released tracks with Elizabeth Naccarato, Louis Anthony deLise, Kim Rosen & Jami Sieber.
Nancy's imaginative sound palettes and willingness to delve into uncharted solo performances and recording opportunities with musicians, film makers, dancers, writers, photographers, painters, bird watchers and psychologists have provided her with a very interesting and rewarding life "People are often unfamiliar with the instruments I play and are curious and motivated to use them. Due to their uniqueness, I am as much of an educator as I am a performer. Consequently, at times, I can feel like a curiosity, an endangered species and a pioneer all rolled into one. I have been both challenged and greatly rewarded by finding ways to make my musical timbres "fit in"!
HER gifts, perseverance, sense of adventure, humor and good fortune have allowed her to share her music with thousands of people in hundreds of unique venues including: Carnegie Hall, the Ho-Am Award Ceremony in Seoul Korea, Buddhist temples in Japan, Yellowstone, Yosemite and Grand Canyon National Parks, the grey whale calving grounds in Mexico, rural and urban America, the Missouri Botanic Garden, Bloedel Reserve, the Cibolo Nature Center, the International Feng-Ya Ocarina Festival in China and the International Ocarina Festival held in Budrio, Italy.. She has orchestrated compositions as well as arranged and composed a concert of choral music.
She created a very unusual and entertaining informance entitled SURPRISE & WONDER for elementary school classrooms. This colorful event draws children into the world of music, art, diversity, design, and science. It is a celebration of the world of rare instruments that nourishes and supports the imagination and creativity in children. Nancy believes if the passion for learning and celebration of the new and unusual is cultivated in children, their lives will always be greatly enriched.
She is a pro-active volunteer with MusiCares which provides emergency financial assistance to people in the music industry. She was the first woman to be a PNW Trustee for The Recording Academy, which she served for two terms. She was a founding Board member of BirdNote.org. She resides in the beautiful Pacific Northwest in the state of Washington.