Recent French Horn News

Dear Hornist,

For many of you who do not know my father Robert Atkinson passed away in November of 2007 (not earlier as many uninformed people have stated). He worked in the shop until the very end and I was at his side at the very end.
At the memorial service we had a mass horn choir of notable Los Angeles horn players directed by Todd Miller (Prof. of Horn at Cal St. Fullerton). All of his children attended as well as family friend, musicians and non musicians. Mr. Vincent DeRosa our friend of many decades paid his last respects to my father by attending.

Warmly, Mark Atkinson

East Midlands (UK) professional horn player Simon Locke and pianist Abigail Johnson have a new website for their brass instrument demonstration project. It can be found at www.brassmaster.org Please feel free to have a look around the site. The initial phase of the project has made good progress with several confirmed bookings and many potential demonstrations in the planning stage. If you would like to discuss further any aspects of the project in relation to your specific requirements, please feel free to contact us using the details on the web site.

We look forward to being able to bring this exciting and enjoyable new approach to music awareness into your school or group.

Regards,

Abigail and Simon

Greetings, I am finally going public with this big project:

I am currently re-recording my "Duets for two horns, opus 139" and my "More than sixty-fours solos for horn, opus 132" Each week I will be posting the sheet music and my recording of them. One new piece a week for more than a year!

http://www.i-ching-music.com/opus132.html
&
http://www.i-ching-music.com/opus139.html

The recordings I am posting will all be without any splices.
I am working on non-stop "one-take" recordings.
This is for two reasons: 1) I am still working on being a better horn
player, and trying to play non-stop through the pieces flawlessly is the sort
of challenge I need.
2) I want to prove that the solos and duets can be played, sometimes only
after hard work, sometime quite easily.

Richard Burdick
1st Horn
Regina Symphony
Regina, SK Canada

www.i-ching-music.com
www.naturalhorn.com
www.favorites-cd.com

Looking for music for five or more horns?

The Guide to Horn Ensemble Repertoire by Rebecca Boehm Shaffer can help you. A new easy-to-use reference for horn ensemble music, this book highlights 17 different performance criteria plus objective annotations on general style, extended techniques, and other performance issues.

For more information, sample entries, and to order, visit www.TheHornGuide.com.

David Thompson has reported to the horn list that Jerome Ashby, Associate Principal horn of the New York Philharmonic, has died following a long battle with cancer.

Following on the cheer of the holiday season, I am very sorry to be the
bearer of very sad news. However, I have received word that Jerome Ashby,
associate principal horn of the New York Philharmonic, passed away this
morning after a long battle with cancer. He leaves behind five daughters,
the youngest still in elementary school.

I had the honor of working with Jerome when we coincided on the faculty of
the Aspen Music Festival a few years back, but I am sure that many others
who knew him for longer will share their thoughts on their experiences with
Jerome. But I did want to let you all know that we have today lost a very
fine horn player, and a wonderful person - one of the class acts in our
business.

Mr. Ashby's playing can be heard on several cds, as well as the American Horn Quartet's Take 9 recording.

Greetings,
I now have completed my set of recordings of all of published horn ensemble music of Louis-François Dauprat's on Natural horn. The latest releases are tuned at A = 432.

The newest CD’s are:
(CD18) Louis-François Duos opus 13 part 2 (duos 3, 5, & 6)
(CD19) Grand Sextet's opus 10 for natural horns in different keys and Grand Trio's opus 4 for natural horns in E
(CD19a) Grand Trio opus 26 for natural horns in E

I have posted sample sound files of each movement on either www.i-ching-music.com or www.naturalhorn.com there are a lot of sound files, so the CD specific pages load a little slow.

A little about each piece:
Opus13: Most natural horn enthusiast are familiar with Dauprat’s Duets opus 14 in different keys, in those, he really avoids the written high A. After working on the opus 13 duets one understands why. If any note is meant for only fast scales, it is that; it’s a beastly note on natural horn, which he used quite a bit in these opus 13 duets. It is also interesting that he goes through his cycle of possible keys in these duets for just Eb horn in a similar way that he did in Opus 14.

Opus 10: His Grand sextets are his most popular works partially due to his use of the High C horn, which results in high D for the modern horn or concert G's above the treble clef staff! But to me they are inspirational because of the difficulty of writing music for horns in different keys and having it fit together so well.

Opus 4: I have know these since the 1970’s as they were published by a few different publishers then. They were common reading in horn groups. Most of these trio recordings I did in one session.

Opus 26:
The last published and greatest work of Dauprat, from 1826, shows clear signs of an influence by Beethoven. A five movement work of high art and about the most chromatic piece I have ever seen for natural horn.

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).

There's a new network/message board site for horn players to check out! Tony Licata (of the 4 hornsmen quartet) and Stewart De Haro (De Haro Horns) created a new message board where horn players can go and discuss anything about the horn. They are hoping it will branch into something big, which I'm sure it will blossom into a very popular spot! I'm so excited, and looking forward to discussing things with other horn players. Check it out!

The website is: http://com3.runboard.com/bbehindthehorn

If you've not yet heard of FaceBook, it is the next Internet sensation. It is a fantastic networking site that is fun, useful, and addictive. There is a very active horn group, and I have just started and orchestra musician group. Whether you are interested in meeting new people, finding people you know, sharing photos, music, or announcing events, FaceBook is just about the best platform that exists. Check it out!

According to Paul Mansur, Milan Yanchich has died.

I was just notified that Milan Yancich died yesterday at the age of 86. Milan was a good friend and a loyal member of IHS. As I recall he served two or three terms on the Advisory council and contributed much through his business, Wind Music, Inc. He was a fine horn player and played and taught in the Rochester, NY Symphony and Eastman School. He was also an author and supplied us all with a lot of great arrangements for horn choir, for ensembles, and solo materials. If I remember correctly, he was largely responsible for the publication of all the Farkas books. We all owe him a great debt of gratitude and thanks. We shall miss him profoundly. To those who didn't know him, I suggest you read his book, A View From The Rear.

An Orchestra Musician's Odyssey - a View from the Rear