Two Met Orchestra Members Retire After 46 Years
May 11, 2007
The Met salutes two members of the orchestra retiring this season after 46 years with the company: French horn player Howard T. Howard and violinist Leslie Dreyer.
Howard, who was raised in Montana and eventually found his way to New York via Detroit, was named principal just one year after joining the orchestra in 1961. “I can’t imagine having spent a life any better,” says Howard, who has watched as the orchestra and the horn section have risen to the level of pre-eminence they hold today. (There’s another institution that is also said to have risen to pre-eminence under Howard’s leadership: the notorious green table in the corner of the Orchestra Lounge, home to one of the world’s longest-running poker games.)
“We horn players, we don’t have to skydive,” notes Howard. “A Siegfried call on your own, the Julius Caesar obbligato solo…that’s enough adrenaline.”
Howard Howard was the college roommate of the legendary University of Michigan symphonic band conductor H. Robert Reynolds (who also studied horn).
