The Horn Call Podcast

Welcome to 2022 everyone! My guest for the first episode of the New Year is Larry Williams!

Hornist Larry Williams has distinguished himself as a multifaceted performing and recording artist, teacher and administrator. Williams is currently Principal Horn of American Studio Orchestra, Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra, Sphinx Symphony Orchestra, and a member of the Lyric Brass Quintet, Rooftop Wind Quintet, and Rodney Marsalis Philadelphia Big Brass. 

Williams formerly served as Principal Horn of The New World Symphony Orchestra and has performed with the Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco Symphony Orchestras, among others. His wide range of musical styles include: solo & chamber repertoire, orchestral, jazz, contemporary, film, and commercial music.  

Williams has performed on tours of the US, Russia, China, Japan, and UK, and has performed with Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Arturo Sandoval, and others. An active soloist and recitalist, Williams has premiered and recorded several horn concerti including: Concerto for Horn and Wind Ensemble by composer Thomas Bough, Black Forest Concerto for Horn and Orchestra by composer James Schroeder, and has recorded several solo and chamber music albums.

Equally passionate about education, Williams currently serves as Adjunct Professor of Horn at Washington Adventist University, and is the Director of DMV Horn Academy. Williams served on the faculty of The Peabody Conservatory, Florida International University, and served as Assistant Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs at Johns Hopkins University. Larry Williams is a Yamaha Performing Artist/Clinician, and performs exclusively on Yamaha Custom Horns.

• Episode Highlights
• Learning what a Provost does/moving into an Administrative position at Johns Hopkins
• Returning/transitioning back to teaching and playing: “Repaying my dues”
• Compared to the old days of online teaching, Zoom is really nice!
• Upcoming performances
• Gateways Festival Orchestra: https://www.gatewaysmusicfestival.org/
• American Studio Orchestra
• Skills from music that helped in his administrative work and vice versa
• Collaborative skills!
• “I’ve learned to listen to my inner voice when it talks to me.”
• Horn players are resilient, curious people.
• “I had no idea you could major in music…”
• Auditioning for the New World Symphony
• Discovering that what works for him is doing a variety of different things – teaching, orchestral playing, chamber music, etc.
• Recruiting strategies and philosophies: you have to think long term, invest in the faculty, make sure the faculty are buying in and taking ownership of the recruiting process; get the students out and about–exposure to potential students
• “The IHS made me feel like I was part of a big horn-playing family.”

My guest for the final episode of 2021 is Dr. Daren Robbins, Instructor of Horn at Mahidol University in Thailand, and the creator of hornexcerpts.org

Daren Robbins has been on the faculty of the College of Music at Mahidol University (Bangkok, Thailand) since 2008, where he teaches horn, brass literature and pedagogy, coaches chamber music, and performs with BrassArts Bangkok, the Mahidol Faculty Woodwind quintet, and the Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra. He is also an active member of the International Horn Society where he serves as Regional Coordinator for Thailand. For ten years, he served as Editor of the IHS Online Music Sales program. Daren maintains an active and multi-faceted performance career, and has conducted solo recitals and masterclasses at universities throughout the U.S. and Asia as well as performed and presented at International Symposiums in Australia, Europe and the U.S. He is the creator of the website hornexcerpts.org, which has become the most frequently visited horn-related website on the internet.

Episode Highlights

• Moving to Thailand, teaching at Mahidol University
• “Different, in a refreshing way”
• HornPure horn ensemble
• Shoutout to the American Horn Quartet!
• Enthusiasm for classical music
• Performing with the Thailand Phil and being the orchestra manager
• Hosting the London Symphony and Berlin Philharmonic
• “It’s easy to get everybody to agree something needs to be changed, but it’s quite difficult to get them to agree how to change it.”
• Orchestra librarians
• “It’s not enough anymore to teach students how to play the Strauss Concerto.”
• https://www.aubreybergauer.com/about
• https://orchestraexcerpts.com/horn
• https://www.hornrep.com/ 
• https://hornoperaproject.org/ 
• Remember cassette tapes?
• Other horn excerpt websites
• Shoutout to IHS webmaster Dan Phillips!

Join us for a very special Holiday Bonus Edition of The Horn Call Podcast! This interview with Gail Williams was recorded at the 2019 Western Horn Festival hosted by Dr. Jena Gardner at Western Illinois University.

My guest for Episode 16 is J. Bernardo Silva, a member of the Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música, horn professor at the University of Aveiro and at Espinho’s Professional Music School, and Vice-President of the International Horn Society!

Episode Highlights

• Trompas Lusas Horn Quartet
• Balancing work and family life
• IHS 53 presentations in English, Portuguese, and Spanish!
• Goal of presenting more IHS content in other languages
• Why he got involved with the IHS - being part of the “club!" 
• What do you see as the future of the IHS?
• “There will always be a role for the IHS.”
• Musical role models
• Studying with Ab Koster
• Portuguese composers for horn: https://www.editions-ava.com/en/
• Warm-up routine available at https://www.hornsociety.org/marketplace/oms 

Join me for a conversation with Radegundis Tavares, President of The International Horn Society!

Radegundis Tavares has been developing a career of important accomplishments. He was the first president of the Brazilian Horn Association and has recorded the first CD of a Brazilian brass player playing standard European classical repertoire, entitled “Universal”, as much as the first CD featuring improvisation on the Horn by a Brazilian player, entitled “Radegundis Tavares”. Radegundis hosted the first two Brazilian Horn Meetings and the first International Horn Symposium in Latin America – IHS49. 

He has been premiering many works for Horn in a great variety of formations, specially Brazilian Music from distinguished Brazilian composers such as José Ursicino da Silva “Maestro Duda”, J. Orlando Alves, Marcílio Onofre, Liduino Pitombeira and Eli-Eri Moura – many of these Works were dedicated to Radegundis. He has acted as a soloist playing traditional repertoire, virtuosic works and Brazilian popular music. 
Radegundis did his under-graduate and graduate courses in the Federal University of Paraiba and had as his Horn professor Cisneiro de Andrade and as his research supervisor Luis Ricardo Silva Queiroz. During his master degree Radegundis started to research about the Horn learning and the performance of Brazilian popular music in this instrument and many publications were made from this project. 

Besides his performances as soloist and chamber musician, Radegundis played as a guest with many orchestras. Since 2008 he is full time professor of Horn at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte and has released in June of 2019 his third solo CD entitled “Sounds from my home”. Radegundis’ recordings can be found on main streaming platforms. 

Episode Highlights

• Current teaching and performing positions
• Why Radegundis got involved with the IHS
• Plans he has for the future of the IHS
• Learning how to promote yourself, get closer to the public
• Making the IHS more international
• “Remember why you got involved with the IHS.”
• Playing Tips, How he stays in shape as a horn player with a busy schedule
• Hosting the 49th International Horn Symposium
• Forming the Brazilian Horn Association
• Music education in Brazil
• Recordings
• Website: https://radegundistavares.com/
• Crossing over into popular music
• “The most important thing is to be together with people.”
• Shoutout to Marcus Bonna!
• Brazilian composers to check out!

Join me in Episode 2 of Season 2 for a discussion with composer and pianist Catherine Likhuta!

Catherine is an Australian-based composer, pianist and recording artist. Her music exhibits high emotional charge, programmatic nature and rhythmic complexity. Catherine’s pieces have been played extensively around the world, including highly prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall (Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage), Glyndebourne Opera House (Organ Room), five International Horn Symposiums and two World Saxophone Congresses, as well as many festivals and conferences. Her works have enjoyed performances by prominent symphony orchestras (such as Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Orchestra of the National Radio of Ukraine), chamber ensembles (such as Atlantic Brass Quintet, Ensemble Q, NU CORNO and U.S. Army Field Band Horns) and soloists (including former president of the North American Saxophone Alliance Griffin Campbell and president of the International Horn Society Andrew Pelletier). Catherine has held residencies at Tyalgum Music Festival, North Carolina NewMusic Initiative, University of Missouri Kansas City, University of Georgia and other institutions. She is a two-time winner of the International Horn Society Composition Contest (virtuoso division) and a recipient of several awards, including two grants from the Australia Council for the Arts. Her music can be heard on Albany, Cala, Equilibrium and Summit Records.

Catherine’s wind band works have enjoyed performances by dozens of wind ensembles, including prominent groups such as SUNY Potsdam Crane Wind Ensemble, Sydney Conservatorium Wind Symphony, University of Georgia Hodgson Wind Ensemble and University of Kentucky Wind Symphony. Her music has been played at Australian School Band and Orchestra Festival (Sydney), CBDNA Conference (Norman, OK) and Midwest Clinic (Chicago, IL).

Catherine holds a Bachelor's degree in jazz piano from Kyiv Glière Music College, a five-year post-graduate degree in composition from the Tchaikovsky National Music Academy of Ukraine (Kyiv Conservatory) and a PhD in composition from the University of Queensland. She is an active performer, often playing her own music. She was the soloist on the premiere and the CD recording of Out Loud, her piano concerto commissioned by the Cornell University Wind Ensemble, and the pianist on Adam Unsworth’s CD Snapshots. 

Episode Highlights

• How she ended up in the US, then Australia
• “You can be a freelance composer, but not a freelance mathematician…”
• Cultural differences between Ukraine and US
• Collaborations with Adam Unsworth, Peter Luff, Denise Tryon
• Advice for young composers
• Networking advice from a mathematician
• “Write the music you believe in…”
• Shoutout to Dana Wilson, Alexander Shuhan, Nancy Joy!
• Horn/Saxophone Rivalry
• Writing for low horn
• “Horn is such an amazing storyteller…”
• “If you write awkward music, it’s not going to come out sounding nice…”
• “I’m a geriatric millennial.”
• For details and audio samples of Cathy’s music, visit www.catherinelikhuta.com

We kick off Season 2 of the Horn Call Podcast with Yasmeen Richards, a free-lance musician based in Washington DC, Maryland, and Virginia, and teacher of horn at the Peabody Preparatory and Baltimore Symphony’s OrchKids. Yasmeen is also acting president and co-founder of the Chromatic Brass Collective.

Episode Highlights

• Growing up in Southern California
• Early study on the horn with Annie Bosler
• “Lead with what you love.”
• Studying at UCLA
• Graduate study at Peabody and Denise Tryon
• Working at IHS 47 in Los Angeles
• Founding Chromatic Brass Collective: https://www.chromaticbrass.org/
• Shoutouts to Annie Bosler and Denise Tryon!
• What’s coming up for Chromatic Brass

Join us in Episode 12 for a conversation with Robert Lee Watt, who was a member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic horn section for 37 years and an active studio musician. Bob was the first African-American hornist hired by a major symphony orchestra in the United States. 

Episode Highlights

• Musicians supporting one another during COVID-19
• The invention of the Watt Lifter
• Moving from the East Coast to the West Coast and Southern California
• Studio playing in the early 1970s
• Sidelining stories
• His books: The Black Horn and French Horn Tips and Tricks https://www.robertleewatt.com/
• Films selected for the Pan African Film Festival, https://www.paff.org/
• The story behind the cover photo on his album, I Play French Horn, https://www.amazon.com/Play-French-Horn-Brubeck-Traditional/dp/B07BSMHFWZ 
• Friendship with Miles Davis
• Working with Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles
• What if Mozart and Beethoven had heard the Blues?

Join me in Episode 11 for a conversation with Douglas Hill, Emeritus Professor of Music-Horn at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, past President of the IHS, and former member of the IHS Advisory Council.

Episode Highlights

• Retiring from UW-Madison, remaining musically active post-retirement (Professor Hill retired from UW-Madison in 2011)
• Activities during COVID-19
• Lung surgery, cancer recovery
• Past and current compositions for the horn, available online at https://hornsociety.org/marketplace/oms
• Article on unaccompanied horn music in the May 2021 issue of The Horn Call
• The only constant is change…
• Much love for Nancy Becknell!
• His passion for birds and birding
• Recent compositions
• IHS thoughts

Join us for a discussion with Dr. Jeffrey Snedeker, Editor of a forthcoming special volume dedicated to the 50th Anniversary of the IHS. Jeff is Professor of Horn at Central Washington University, and is a member of the IHS Advisory Council, Past President of the IHS, past Editor of The Horn Call, and was awarded the IHS Service Medal of Honor in 2020.

Episode Highlights

Overview of the 50th Anniversary volume
Discussion of the planning, creation process 
Chapters
Anticipated release date
Where can someone buy the book?
Jeff’s Book on the Paris Conservatory is out soon by Routledge