The Northwest Horn Symposium 2010

This past weekend I was at the Northwest Horn Symposium on the campus of the University of Oregon in Eugene. Hosted by Lydia Van Dreel, the event featured a wide variety of events and players. I was able to be there for the Friday and Saturday of the event and have a number of impressions.

One first, somewhat major point was that featured artists The Virtuoso Horn Duo (Kristina Mascher and Kerry Turner) had to cancel at the last minute due to travel problems from Europe caused by that recent volcanic eruption in Iceland! That threw things off a bit for the event but allowed others to step in and fill the voids in the schedule.

The first event was the opening concert on Friday. This was to feature the horn section of the Oregon Symphony, Gregory Roosa, and the Virtuoso Horn Duo. The pre-concert horn ensemble was from Central Washington University, conducted by Jeff Snedeker, who played well a quite varied program, the Critter Music of Douglas Hill being particularly interesting. The concert opened as programmed, with John Cox, Joseph Berger, Mary Grant, and Graham Kingsbury giving a very solid performance of the Hindemith Sonata for four horns, and I really enjoy hearing sections of regional orchestras featured in this way at events. The next work also went off as scheduled, the Rheinberger Sonata performed by Gregory Roosa. I don’t recall seeing him featured at an event previously; Roosa is fourth hornist of the St. Louis Symphony and gave a very solid performance of this beautiful work.

From there the program went in other directions. The event was not set up to feature the quartet Quadre on this concert but the members were present and the second half of the concert focused on Quadre. Group members Amy Jo Rhine, Nathan Pawelek, Lydia Van Dreel, and Daniel Wood did a great job and performed several difficult works with impressive, tight performances. Bravo!

For me Saturday was the big day. The first event of the day was mine, a session on the Wagner tuba. Due to rehearsals and needing to duck out of the event for a time I missed several sessions and can’t really comment on them but I did enjoy the master class with Patrick Hughes, who was a last minute sub for the Virtuoso Horn Duo. I also enjoyed the session with Tom Varner; I will comment more on this later in the week with a follow-up post and a review of his new CD project.

The prelude music for “Big Concert #2” Saturday night was by the Oregon State University Horn Choir, conducted by Lawrence Johnson. I really enjoyed how they worked Wagner tubas into the ensemble; Johnson has a set of antique tuben (100+ years old) which are made on an upright pattern.

I played on this concert so I can’t really give the best review of the other performances but heard most from backstage. This concert was however just about as varied as you could possibly make a concert, ranging from baroque works on horn, descant horn, and Wagner tuba (Brad Kintscher performed well the difficult Tocccata and Fugue arrangement for solo horn, and I played the Bach Air on Wagner tuba and also the Graun concerto) to old standards to cutting edge new works on horn and alphorn! I especially enjoyed the Messiaen Interstellar Call, performed by Patrick Hughes; I will follow up with a post on that later this week also.

The event continued on Sunday but I had to leave early; I would have especially enjoyed hearing the Northwest Horn Orchestra, a group of 16 players from the horn sections of several professional orchestras in the Northwest. Also the final concert was to feature a natural horn performance by Gina Gillie, something I have not seen at a workshop in what seems like several years. Next year I plan to present a recital that will feature several works on natural horn at the Musical Instrument Museum that just opened here in Phoenix; maybe the next few years will see natural horn featured more often at workshops as well. Finally, the final concert was to feature a newly commissioned horn quartet by Anthony Plog. This work I will just have to wait to hear, and it is one to be looking for in the future.

I did shop just a little and purchased two items from Solid Wood Publishing, the arrangement for two solo horns and horn quartet of the first movement of the Haydn double concerto and also the arrangement of the Mozart Horn Quintet for solo horn with four horns. The arrangements are by James Emerson. Solid Wood was one of only two exhibitors at the event, quite a few less than seen at most events of this type.

In conclusion congratulations again to Lydia Van Dreel and her students, it was a great event and I hope they host again in a few years.