IHS Brisbane 2010, Part VII: The Final Concerts and More

As noted at the end of the previous post, I was off to the banquet at about 1:30. It was a very nice meal with a number of notables present, including in particular Barry Tuckwell and also the niece of Dennis Brain. The food was excellent and it was a nice time to celebrate.

Time worked out fine to get to the rehearsal I had before the afternoon concert which also doubled as the business meeting of the IHS. The afternoon concert featured Frank Lloyd, Jeff Nelsen, William VerMeulen, and the Advisory Council horn ensemble.

First up was Frank Lloyd. His opener was announced from the stage and again I can’t tell you accurately what it was but it was a solo horn work played impressively that had a theme in it similar to the tune of Jesus Christ, Superstar. Next up he played the Berhnard Heiden Sonata with pianist Tomoko Kanamaru. I have not mentioned her yet in these posts and she was another pianist heard often on the programs who did great work. After a solid performance of this Lloyd turned a corner and performed another difficult solo work, I Hit a Breakfront Forking Funk by Anthony Gustav Morris. This was another world premiere and was actually on the Monday program but was not yet at that time prepared for performance. The title he explained was an anagram but I have not tried to work it out. This was followed by yet another solo work not in the program. I am pretty sure the correct info is it was Etude, Don’t Make it Bad by Tim Jackson. It is based on a Beatles tune (you can guess which one from the title) and again showed off his impressive technique.

Then we turned to Bill VerMeulen and Jeff Nelsen. They performed the Haydn Double Concerto very nicely at a brisk pace and both showed off their technique yet again.

Next up was “something completely different” that was a surprise for the audience for sure. At this point the official business meeting of the International Horn Society was held during sort of an extended intermission. Reports were given (I gave reports about the Facebook page and also the Meir Rimon fund), new honorary members announced, etc. It took a little while with Robert’s Rules and such and for sure we lost part of the crowd.

In any event, the most significant results are the following, which have also been reported in the News section of The IHS Online:

New officers are: President: Frank Lloyd, Vice-President: David Thompson, Secretary-Treasurer: Jonathan Stoneman

New Advisory Council members are Frank Lloyd, Peter Luff and Leighton Jones, replacing Michelle Stebleton, Heather Petit-Johnson and Jeff Snedeker, whose terms expired and were ineligible for further service. Joseph Ognibene, John Ericson and Geof Winter were re-elected to the AC.

Newly elected Honorary Members of the IHS are Dale Clevenger, Anthony Halstead and Lowell Shaw.

After that was the end of the concert, finally, with it not ending until close to 6:30 PM which I heard an audience member note was a bit epic. The members of the Advisory Council (plus a few ringers such as Armin Terzer) performed four works for large horn ensemble, Fanfare and Toccata by William Holcomb, an arrangement of Amazing Grace by Simon Procter, and the closer was William Tell Overture arranged by Armin Terzer, who sat just to my left in the performance and laid down some notes! Bravo again to him.

Astute readers may have noticed that I said there were four last works but I have only described three. The other work needs its own paragraph; the surprise guest conductor was Barry Tuckwell. He has been present the whole week and was easy to spot in his series of colorful “No Kopprasch” shirts every day. For the final day he chose purple and as to the work he chose a new arrangement of Randall Thompson’s beautiful Alleluia. It was a treat to work with him briefly and to meet him if only in my case in passing, and I am sure many hornists present felt the same way. [The shirt mentioned, by the way, is from the Barry Tuckwell Institute. A photo of one may be found in an account of the 2009 event in the Newhornist’s Blog.]

The Last Concert (really!)

The Final, Gala concert featured works for horn and orchestra with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra. On the program were the Franz Strauss Concerto with Hector McDonald, Mozart 4 with Valentin Eschmann, The Schumann Konzertstuck with the American Horn Quartet, and if that were not enough music for you the concert ended with the Bartok Concerto for Orchestra.

The concert began with Valentin Eschmann. Unless I am missing something I can’t tell exactly from either printed program book, but he is a younger player (born in 1988) of which my understanding is he won a competition to perform on this program. Since these posts have run on so long already, a bit of digression. “Back in the day” (roughly in the 1980s) at IHS horn workshops there was an informal “Medaling Committee” that gave various awards. One of them was the Giant Clam award. So far as I know there is thankfully no such committee any more but I believe he played better earlier in the week.

This was the third time I have heard the American Horn Quartet perform the Konzertstuck live with an orchestra. So I was curious going in what new they would bring to the table, especially with the recent personnel change. When I heard them previously it was with semi-pro or student orchestras at regional workshops in the United States. This however was with a fully professional orchestra in a fine hall with a large audience that included several political figures that were announced at the beginning (as elections are in about a month in Australia). With a stronger and tighter orchestra they did bring it up a notch I think and it was a fine performance.

They have performed this many, many times and have recorded it. I think it is no secret that they use their own version of the parts as they also sell this version (publisher here). What they did in their version was split the first part among the top three players and rearrange the voicing as needed. This I have no problem with really, it sounds the same or better out in the hall if performed by a good matched group. I did note however, as did others in the audience, that they actually have changed the ending and some other spots a bit more than I remember. It still sounds fine really but unfortunately I know too much! The very ending for example had several extra chords which for me, I don’t know, the revision is a bit Hollywood for my tastes. I really hate to sound critical though on this as the point is to please an audience and this they did for sure with a spirited and enjoyable performance which got a great crowd reaction. It just shows the choices we have as artists.

After intermission we had Hector McDonald, who we heard earlier in the week on Vienna horn and he was back with it again to perform the Franz Strauss Concerto Op. 8. This for me was pretty exciting to see attempted live as I have played a good bit of single horn with crooks, but at the same time you have to be careful to prepare the audience for this. McDonald gave a clear and entertaining intro to the Vienna horn beforehand and it was a good job overall but still I worry that it all may have gone over the head of many members of the audience in general. It is one of those tough calls for me as I on one hand really admire what he is trying to do and was excited to hear that classic Vienna horn sound live in a good hall but it is hard to do it effectively outside of practically a lecture-recital format at a horn workshop.

[And for completeness/disclosure, I did actually give a lecture-recital on Franz Strauss at the International Horn Symposium in Bloomington in 2003. The big additional note being that Franz Strauss did not play a Vienna horn, he played a rotary valve single B-flat for most of his career. See this post for more and my handout is here. And I should note that McDonald did not in any way imply that Franz Strauss did play a Vienna horn, but I want with this note to be sure any students reading this later would be very clear on the topic, that Franz Strauss was a progressive in his time and an early adopter of the single B-flat.]

The concert ended with the Bartok Concerto for Orchestra. It was a very strong performance, the orchestra is a fine orchestra and it is not often that after a performance of this work will the horns be given the first acknowledgement!

I only hung out a while afterwards and tried to get some rest. I understand there was some serious celebrating going on afterwards though with the plan to be tired on the plane.

Trains, Planes, and Automobiles

For the trip back I started out on a train to the airport and at that point took this photo which will end our official coverage, me with Dan Phillips, horn professor at the University of Memphis and manager of The IHS Online. The event was quite a ride and the way back was I hope smoother for all than in the movie Trains, Planes, and Automobiles. My final two, random notes would be

• I probably saw more than the average person at the event but at the same time, in retrospect, I managed to miss all the master classes. So, on the record, if you attend in the future there are master classes to attend!
• I would love to visit Australia again with more time to see things and with my wife. Perhaps someday….

On this note I bid farewell and end coverage of this symposium. It was a great event that more people should have attended. Get to the next one if you can, June 20-25, 2011 on the campus of San Francisco State University.

Part I of Horn Matters coverage of IHS Brisbane is here