The French horn is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. The double horn in F/B♭ is the horn most often used by players in professional orchestras and bands, although the descant and triple horn have become increasingly popular. A musician who plays a horn is known as a horn player or hornist.
Dennis Brain was a British horn player. From a musical family – his father and grandfather were horn players – he attended the Royal Academy of Music in London. During the Second World War he served in the Royal Air Force, playing in its band and orchestra. After the war, he was the principal horn of the Philharmonia and Royal Philharmonic orchestras, and played in chamber ensembles.
Colin Matthews, OBE is an English composer of contemporary classical music. Noted for his large-scale orchestral compositions, Matthews is also a prolific arranger of other composer's music, including works by Berlioz, Britten, Dowland, Mahler, Purcell and Schubert. Other arrangements include orchestrations of all Debussy's 24 Préludes, both books of Debussy's Images, and two movements—Oiseaux tristes and La vallée des cloches—from Ravel's Miroirs. Having received a doctorate from University of Sussex on the works of Mahler, from 1964–1975 Matthews worked with his brother David Matthews and musicologist Deryck Cooke on completing a performance version of Mahler's Tenth Symphony.
Ian Bousfield is an English musician who has held positions as Principal Trombone with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra and the Hallé Orchestra. Also a pedagogue, Bousfield is an instructor in the music division at the Hochschule der Künste in Bern, Switzerland.
Byron Fulcher is a British musician who is the principal trombone with the Philharmonia Orchestra and the London Sinfonietta. In addition, he is professor of trombone at the Royal College of Music.
Philip Cashian is an English composer. He is the head of composition at the Royal Academy of Music.
Michael Thompson is a British horn player. After studying at the Royal Academy of Music, Thompson was appointed Principal Horn with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra aged just 18 years. By the age of 21 he was offered positions as Principal Horn with both the Philharmonia and Royal Philharmonic Orchestras, accepting the Philharmonia position, a post he held for ten years before leaving to fulfil increasing solo and chamber music commitments.
Edward Gregson is an English composer of instrumental and choral music, particularly for brass and wind bands and ensembles, as well as music for the theatre, film, and television. He was also principal of the Royal Northern College of Music.
Archie Camden was a British bassoonist, a pedagogue and soloist who won international acclaim. In 1968 The Times said "If the bassoon is no longer considered to be the orchestra's clown, its rehabilitation is the result of Mr Camden's work as an orchestral player, soloist and teacher".
Gordon Hunt is a British musician and conductor. Regarded as one of the world's leading oboists, Hunt has served as principal oboe of the Philharmonia and London Chamber orchestras, a professor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and an Honorary Associate of the Royal Academy of Music.
Torstein Aagaard-Nilsen is a Norwegian contemporary composer.
David Atherton is an English conductor and founder of the London Sinfonietta.
Richard Bissill is a French horn player, composer and arranger, and Professor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London.
Roger Argente was Principal Bass Trombone for the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and teaches at Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Cardiff, Wales.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Horn Concerto No. 4 in E-flat major, K. 495 was completed in 1786.
Antony Pay is a classical clarinettist. After gaining a place with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, with whom he performed the Mozart clarinet concerto at the age of 16, he studied at the Royal Academy of Music and then read Mathematics at Cambridge University, graduating in 1966.
The German horn is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell, and in bands and orchestras is the most widely used of three types of horn, the other two being the French horn and the Vienna horn. Its use among professional players has become so universal that it is only in France and Vienna that any other kind of horn is used today. A musician who plays the German horn is called a horn player. The word "German" is used only to distinguish this instrument from the now-rare French and Viennese instruments. Although the expression "French horn" is still used colloquially in English for any orchestral horn, since the 1930s professional musicians and scholars have generally avoided this term in favour of just "horn". Vienna horns today are played only in Vienna, and are made only by Austrian firms. German horns, by contrast, are not all made by German manufacturers, nor are all French-style instruments made in France.
Howard Dunster Snell was born in Wollaston, Northamptonshire, England.
Timothy Thorpe is a British horn player.
