Actually, there was quite a bit of mis-identification of John de
Lancie's location and orchestral affiliation at the time.

>From http://www.philorch.org/styles/poa02e/www/prognotes_20050120.html:

   THE OBOE CONCERTO
   "Oboe Concerto 1945/Suggested by an American soldier/(an
   oboist from Chicago)." Thus wrote Strauss in the pocket
   sketchbook he always kept close at hand.  The soldier was,
   in fact, a young Curtis Institute of Music graduate named
   John de Lancie, who had at age 21, before he enlisted, been
   principal oboist of the Pittsburgh Symphony under Fritz Reiner.
   Upon his return to the States he joined The Philadelphia
   Orchestra as assistant to his former teacher Marcel Tabuteau,
   whom he eventually succeeded as principal in 1954.  He was
   later Richard Woodhams's teacher at Curtis, where he served
   as director from 1977 to 1985.

   In notes for his recording of the Concerto, de Lancie recounted
   meeting the great composer through his friend Alfred Mann, a
   musicologist and later distinguished professor at the Eastman
   School of Music.  Strauss lived with his family in an elegant
   villa in Garmisch, not far south from Munich.  "Once I mustered
   all my courage and began to talk about the beautiful oboe
   melodies in Don Quixote, Don Juan, Sinfonia domestica, and
   others.  I wanted to know if he had a special affinity for
   the instrument.  As I was well aware of his Horn Concerto I
   then asked him if he ever considered writing a concerto for
   oboe, but his only answer was a simple 'no.'" But the suggestion
   took hold, as Strauss acknowledged.  In early July he wrote
   to Willi Schuh that "an oboe concerto with small orchestra
   is being 'fabricated' in my old-age workshop." He completed
   the short score of the Concerto in mid-September and the
   orchestration by the end of October in Switzerland.  De Lancie,
   however, did not get to premiere "his" Concerto.  That honor
   fell to Marcel Saillet, who performed it with the Tonhalle
   Orchestra under Volkmar Andreae in Zurich on February 26,
   1946.  De Lancie only first performed the Concerto he inspired
   during the Strauss centennial in 1964, with the Philadelphians
   and Eugene Ormandy at Interlochen in Michigan.

Cheers,

Mike Smith
Boulder, Colorado