Paul Hanson has played bassoon all over the world, in jazz clubs and jazz festivals, concert halls and back rooms, and notably for three years with Cirque du Soleil in Tokyo. In 2008, Paul was invited to create his own role as electric improvising bassoonist in Cirque Du Soleil’s ZED – a resident show at Tokyo Disney Resort. This unique creation performed 380 shows a year from 2008-2011. To this day Cirque Du Soleil auditions bassoonists because of the ZED role Paul helped develop and create. Before and since the Cirque run, Paul has traveled the globe, stunning audiences with the flexibility of his conception and execution on a challenging instrument not known for its flexibility.

Paul is home in the Bay Area now, and played here at Bird & Beckett recently with his friends in the Berkeley Choro Ensemble. Now he’s bringing a duo project into the store for two intriguing and soul-satisfying sets of music.

With Paul in the duo is the guitarist Dave MacNab, a uniquely and awesomely talented musician with a raft of credentials. Says Paul, Dave is “an incredible guitarist and also very, very busy doing shows like Wicked, Hamilton, The Color Purple, Jersey Boys-you name it-he’s done it both in SF and on the road all over the world…he’s one of the most versatile guitarists on the planet!”