IHS Brisbane 2010, Part V: Plenty of Horn Choir

Thursday things shifted gears a bit, with an emphasis on horn ensembles.

As I keep waking up early (which works well for posting these reports, anyway) I easily started my day with the warm-up with Frank Lloyd. He had, as noted earlier in the week, sounded great on his recital and I am sure most people there were curious how someone with all the technique he has would warm up. The venue for the warm-up was open to the outdoors and it was cool even with a jacket, which was not ideal, but it worked and we found out that he warms up aggressively! It was a great warm-up session, the first in a long time that I actually felt really warmed up at the end, and contained much that was similar to things I would do normally. In short it involved a lot of fast flexibility studies on the F and Bb horn and also scales in every key. In the Q and A at the end he revealed that he can go on and on working on these materials for hours (but he does have a short version if a quick warm-up is needed, as well). He sounds like he does hours and hours of this stuff for sure, the moral of the story being if you want to sound like that there is work to be done, get busy!

The Massed Horn Choir rehearsal was next but as I needed to practice I opted out in favor of being in the audience later when they performed. The rehearsal and concert were in the same covered, outdoor venue near the Conservatorium. Instead I visited exhibits including the IVASI display (I am impressed that they keep this going and even keep expanding the system) and made a brief run to try horns again.

I would have also enjoyed seeing the “get fearless” session with Jeff Nelsen at 11:30 but I still had a rehearsal and meeting starting at noon which also made it so I would miss the organized horn ensemble reading sessions after lunch.

Horn Ensembles in the Afternoon

Actually my first stop after I was free again was to check instruments a bit more. At this point I have tried a sample of every table and brand and in short I liked most of them fairly well to very well. There are a lot of good horns out there on the market. I hate to vote for a favorite but trying them on tables like this I always find Alexander horns interesting and I was also particularly interested to see and try a ¾ size single B-flat horn by Paxman. The dealer said they had sold over 100 of these in Australia recently and they are really an ideal instrument for a young beginner to hold and play.

The next stop was the afternoon concert which was, you guessed it, horn ensembles.

The first group was from the Japanese Horn Society who played a pleasing program of the Norwegian March by Buyanovsky, an arrangement of Nimrod by Elgar, and a medley of Japanese folk songs. Next up was a group from the Sidney Conservatorium conducted by Ben Jacks, who nicely played an arrangement of the slow movement of Bruckner 7 and also La Danza from the first London Horn Sound album.

Concerts are not a contest but in a way in this type of concert at this type of event for the audience they become a bit of a contest, and in this case it actually mirrors a contest at the event. The next group threw it down and to my mind pretty much stole the show, Horn Pure from the Mahidol University College of Music in Thailand. The octet opened with Kerry Turner, Farewell to Red Castle, performed from memory with no conductor. Digest that for a moment; I don’t recall seeing such a thing from any college horn ensemble I have seen at a workshop and I hope they get a video up on YouTube soon. They for sure raised the bar and performed this work beautifully, a great example of the real variety of works and sounds that have come from the pen of Kerry Turner. The octet followed this with an arrangement of Thai folk songs and closed with Pirates of the Caribbean. Their director (but all was performed with no conductor) is Daren Robbins, who many Horn Matters readers will know as the brains behind www.hornexcerpts.org. They performed impressively for sure and it was clear why they won the horn ensemble competition this week at the symposium. I would love to hear this group again.

The final group was the “home team,” the Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University Horn Ensemble. First, that they could play at all after manning tables and running around all day for four or five days was a testament to their skill. They played three very substantial and difficult works as well and they did a good job at them, opening with octet arrangements of two full nineteenth century orchestral works with no cuts, Der Freischutz Overture and Academic Festival Overture. The arrangements are by Armin Terzer and first I should commend these arrangements, they are really difficult and well done (I will be playing another of his arrangements on the final day as well). Another thing to mention is Armin has not only been the right hand man of the workshop host but also he has an international reputation of his own as a member of the YouTube Symphony. Check out this older Horn Matters post on his audition which is a very impressive video audition, and now I have been in the same room he filmed it in and have heard him play live multiple times. And the entire studio did a solid job reflecting serious effort on their part. Their closer was an arrangement of Braveheart for 8 horns, 4 Wagner tuben, and percussion which was a great closer to the concert and fit the mood and moment very well. I was glad, too, that it was over a bit early as I for sure needed a break, we have had a lot of long days.

An Evening of Massed Horn Choir

The evening concert was, you guessed it again, more horn ensembles. This time it was the Massed Horn Choir conducted and led by Randall Faust, host of the horn symposium last year.

To digress a bit first, students of mine over the years may recall playing an arrangement of Landsighting by Grieg for 6 horns in horn choir. I have done this a number of times and actually it is a work and arrangement that I purchased after playing it in the mass horn choir at my first International Horn Symposium in Charleston, IL back in 1983. Which is to say there must be students having the same experience tonight of playing works that they will come back to again with their own students.

In short it was an enjoyable and short concert performed by what I counted to be roughly 75-80 horns. They played a variety of works, my favorite being the Meditation (2007) for double horn choir by the conductor, Randall Faust. Bravo to him yet again!

There was a jazz concert later that probably was a lot of fun but I was very happy to be back in the hotel room before 8:00 PM for a change and was sleeping soundly before 10:00 PM. With the note being to future workshop hosts that a 40 minute concert in the evening on Thursday is OK with me!

Friday is the last full day and it looks to be another really full one. For those following this series as it is posted I don’t know if my final report will go up before I leave Australia or after I get back to the United States due to the window of time open to me, but there will for sure be at least one more post about the event so be checking back for it by this weekend, and for photos that go right along with this series of posts check the International Horn Society on Facebook.