John Gaudette grew up in Southern California and has been drawing and painting since early childhood. He took art classes in high school and, as soon as he started music lessons, recognized the correlation between art and music—color, line, tone, shape, and texture. While in high school, he played in the Debut Orchestra and was admitted to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where he studied with Sol Schoenbach.

After graduation, he played with the Dallas Symphony before he emigrating to Canada to play in the Vancouver Symphony as assistant principal bassoon; concurrently, he played in the CBC Vancouver Radio Orchestra and taught at the University of British Columbia. While in Canada, he started printmaking, taking courses and workshops at the Malaspina Printmakers Society in Vancouver. There, he was introduced to monoprints and stone lithography, his main medium as a visual artist.

In 2001, John moved to Chicago to freelance as a musician. He also began painting large lift prints on canvas, combining printmaking with oil painting. John has played with the Lyric Opera Orchestra and Chicago Symphony, joining the latter for tours in Europe, Japan and China. He has also performed with the Chicago Philharmonic (principal bassoon), Joffrey Ballet, Music of the Baroque, Folcrum Point, and the Sinfonietta. He was a member of the Barossa Woodwind Quintet for seven years and now teaches at Northern Illinois University and University of Illinois in Chicago.

Being a symphony musician, John’s works sometimes revolve around musical compositions: “Pictures at an Exhibition” (Mussorgsky), “Scherazade” (Rimsky-Korsakov), and “Jeu de Cartes” (Stravinsky). The 16 “Pictures” lithographs have been exhibited in Vancouver for the Vancouver Symphony, in Chicago for the Chicago Philharmonic and Jeff Yang’s In the Realm of Senses. With art as well as music, John’s mantra has always been “listen, don’t just hear” and “look, don’t just see.” He lives with his wife, teenage daughter, two dogs and two cats in Rogers Park.

5 Fun Facts About John

Got stuck in a terrible traffic jam (summer of '69) and wound up at Woodstock for days
Learning to play the banjo
Hate going to the dentist (I cry)
I love sailing (used to sail a Hoby cat)
Accidentally bought 6 antique hospital beds at an auction