Oboes and Orchestral Tuning

 If you’ve ever seen a Looney Tunes cartoon, or watched a performance at your local concert hall, chances are you know the cacophonous wall of sound that is an orchestra tuning, buried somewhere in your subconscious. But why does the orchestra tune specifically to the oboe, in the concert pitch of A? What dictates these parameters? Dr. Kathleen McGuire, Senior Lecturer in Education (Music) at Australian Catholic University was on the line to explain more.