IHS Denver in Review

With IHS Denver over for only 24 hours as I write this post much is still fresh in my mind from the event.

WOW! Congratulations and many thanks must be given to host Susan McCullough. There were nearly 800 hornists in attendance and it was an extremely busy week. For me personally not only did I have something like 12 hours of meetings as a member of the IHS Advisory Council, I also had a sales booth for Horn Notes Edition and performed and gave three presentations. My days were all very full.

I could not go to every event of course but I do have a few notes that will give a bit of a window into what all was seen at the event.

First, the best thing not mentioned in my “what to do at the event” post was the display by Dick Martz. He brought about thirty [UPDATE: 55!] antique horns and set up a museum! It was slightly out of the way and I believe may not have gotten the traffic it deserved. You can still visit his collection online if you missed it, but if you ever have the chance to see it again jump on the opportunity, this was wonderful. Many thanks to Dick for his effort and expense to bring this unique display to the event; it was very memorable for me.

I had a great time seeing many different people. A number of old friends I had not seen in years were there and I especially enjoyed seeing my major professor from IU, Michael Hatfield. He is feeling and looking great and it was just great to see this important mentor again, whom I served as a teaching assistant to for three years as a Doctoral student. I also particularly enjoyed talking with Lowell Greer at some length; his work with the natural horn was an inspiration for me.

Although I was tied up with the sales table much of the day all week, I heard all of the evening concerts and parts of some daytime concerts. I heard a number of works that I was not familiar with, some of which I have noted that I want to track it down and others are noted as works I don’t have much interest to hear again. As an example from the positive side, one work that caught my attention was Le son du Cor by Arne Oldberg, conducted by IHS Honorary Member Christopher Leuba. It is for eight horns; I have owned a copy for years but have never had a group read it. We will in the fall.

As to the musicians on the concerts, one general comment is that there were no perfect concerts or performances. Which is fine! It was great to hear real performances with their blemishes. We are all in fact human.

Who was most impressive? This is really hard to say but if pressed I would have to give the nod to the Cleveland Orchestra horn section as I had not heard them live previously and they played great, presenting very well a classic horn sound of a type not heard often enough at horn workshops. A number of people were heard that I had never had the chance to hear before, for example I enjoyed hearing Quadre and The Denver Brass, and Prof. I. M. Gestopfmitscheist was memorable at the least.

On the negative side, almost every concert was too long. Too many concerts ran over 2.5 hours, it really was a bit too much of a good thing.

My events were all well attended I think, with around 60 at my Wagner tuba session and about the same number at my Sunday morning “horn gym” group warm-up. I was not able to attend any sessions other than my own but I understand that many were very good.

I was very proud of my students. I had seven current or recent students in attendance, four helped with my Wagner tuba session and performed beautifully, Derek Wright played in the master class with David Krehbiel, and also Rose French won the position of Symposium Exhibits Coordinator for the IHS and did a wonderful job of meeting and beginning her work with exhibitors.

Finally, I would like to give two awards. My choice for the new product award is a book, The Wagner Tuba: A History by William Melton, just published by Edition Ebenos. It compliments my publication very well, as he covers the history and repertoire of the Wagner tuba at a very high level while I cover practical aspects of playing the instrument. My other award is the “unhappy camper award.” One day coming back from my lunch break I saw a student sitting talking on the phone, very animatedly telling someone that they had had it with the event, they did not want to hear or see another horn, that the other people in their studio were all acting like fifth graders, and that they were stuck at the event until after the weekend! Well, to each their own. I thought it was a great event.

Next year try to attend! It will be held on the campus of Western Illinois University in early June 2009–be watching the IHS website for more details.