The goal of this dissertation project is to explore recent contributions by American composers to a body of repertoire that is often neglected: the bassoon concerto. The bassoon as a solo instrument is not a recent development, yet there remain relatively few concertos in the repertoire, compared to the number of those written for certain other instruments. The most well-known and most frequently performed bassoon concertos are those written by European composers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. However, there are several concertos for bassoon and orchestra that have been written in the last half-century by American composers - that is, composers from the United States - and it is worthwhile to bring more exposure to these works. This performance project consists of two recitals focusing on five American bassoon concertos, each with varying degrees of familiarity among audiences. The first recital, performed on February 28, 2007, includes Raymond E. Luke's Concerto for Bassoon and Orchestra (1 965), Dan Welcher's Concerto da Camera ( 1 975), and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich's Concerto for Bassoon and Orchestra (1 992). The second recital, performed on March 28, 2007, consists of John Williams' The Five Sacred Trees (1995), and John Steinmetz's Concerto (2003). Extensive program notes for each of these pieces include a biography of the composer and an overview and analysis of each work. The pieces included in this project are performed with piano accompaniment; its respective composer did each of the five piano reductions. In the Zwilich and Steinmetz concertos, however, percussion is added to the piano accompaniment to better portray the essence of these composers' compositions. Although there have been more than these five concertos for bassoon and orchestra written since 1965 by American composers, this project is intended to be a representative survey of available repertoire in this genre during this period. With that in mind, this performer has chosen a cross-section of works and composers with varying backgrounds, degrees of familiarity among the public, circumstances surrounding the compositions written, and stylistic traits - all in an effort to create a balanced program and an overview of the works currently available in the bassoon repertoire