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.
Joan Tower is a Grammy-winning contemporary American composer, concert pianist and conductor. Lauded by The New Yorker as "one of the most successful woman composers of all time", her bold and energetic compositions have been performed in concert halls around the world. After gaining recognition for her first orchestral composition, Sequoia (1981), a tone poem which structurally depicts a giant tree from trunk to needles, she has gone on to compose a variety of instrumental works including Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman, which is something of a response to Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man, the Island Prelude, five string quartets, and an assortment of other tone poems. Tower was pianist and founding member of the Naumburg Award-winning Da Capo Chamber Players, which commissioned and premiered many of her early works, including her widely performed Petroushskates.
Larry Combs is an American clarinetist and educator.
David Shifrin is an American classical clarinetist and artistic director.
John Marcellus is a trombone musician and teacher. He was Professor of Trombone at the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester, and past Chair of the Woodwind, Brass, and Percussion Department. In addition to his trombone teaching responsibilities at Eastman, Dr. Marcellus was the conductor of the Eastman Trombone Choir, Eastman Bionic Bones, and the trombonist with the Eastman Brass. Dr. Marcellus joined the faculty of the Eastman School in 1978, and was named the Kilbourn Professor from 1982-83. He succeeded the trombonist and teacher, Emory Remington, who served as Professor of Trombone at Eastman close to 50 years. Professor Marcellus retired in 2014 after 36 years at Eastman.
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.
Eric Ewazen is an American composer and teacher.
Daniel Katzen is a French horn teacher and player, and, since September 2008, has been the Associate Professor of Horn at the University of Arizona's Fred Fox School of Music in Tucson. Prior to that, he was Second Horn in the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) from April 1979 to August 2008. He is a recitalist, chamber musician, clinician and soloist and has appeared in 22 states and 25 countries in 5000 performances and master classes. He can be heard on virtually all recordings with the BSO and the Boston Pops from 1979–2000, and has also recorded with the Empire Brass and other chamber groups. Prof. Katzen taught horn at Boston University and the New England Conservatory from 1981–2008, and at CalArts from 2000–2007. He has consulted with the University of California, Irvine orchestral performance program since 2000, and has performed and recorded with various Los Angeles orchestras and film studios. Among the films in which he has played are Schindler's List, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Pearl Harbor, Twister, Nixon, Saving Private Ryan and Jumanji.
Carolyn Mae "Carol" Jantsch is an American tuba player. She is the daughter of a medical doctor and a Kenyon College vocal-music teacher, Nancy Jantsch. She began to study piano at age 6, and the euphonium at age 9. She took up the tuba in seventh grade.
Toshiyuki Shimada is a Japanese-born American orchestral conductor. He is Music Director of both the Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra in New London, CT; the Orchestra of the Southern Finger Lakes in Corning, NY; and the New Britain Symphony Orchestra. He had been Music Director of the Yale Symphony Orchestra of Yale University from 2005 to 2019, and currently he is Director of Orchestral Activity at the Connecticut College. He is also Music Director Laureate of the Portland Symphony Orchestra, in Portland, Maine, which he was Music Director from 1986 to 2006. Prior to Portland, he was Associate Conductor of the Houston Symphony Orchestra for six years, beginning in 1981. He also serves as Principal Conductor of the Vienna Modern Masters, in Austria since 1998.
Daniel Hege is an American orchestral conductor. He is currently the music director of the Wichita Symphony Orchestra and the Binghamton Philharmonic, and is the principal guest conductor of the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra. Hege previously served as the music director of the former Syracuse Symphony Orchestra. He also makes numerous guest appearances with orchestras and music festivals across the country.
Dale Clevenger was an American musician who was the Principal Horn of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 1966 until his retirement in June, 2013. Before joining the CSO, he was a member of Leopold Stokowski's American Symphony Orchestra and the Symphony of the Air directed by Alfred Wallenstein. He was also principal horn of the Kansas City Philharmonic. Prior to his death, he taught horn at the Jacobs School of Music in Indiana University.
Linda Strommen is an American oboist. She is Professor of Oboe at Indiana University and has been a regular visiting Oboe Instructor at the Juilliard School of Music for more than ten years. A former member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and the Santa Fe Opera, she has held principal and assistant principal position with Milwaukee, Honolulu, New Heaven, Wichita, and Baton Rouge Symphonies and acting principal oboe positions with the Rochester Philharmonic and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. In addition to being a former member of the Timm and Lieurance Woodwind Quintets, she has been a regular participant in summer festivals such as the Marlboro, Bellingham, Bard and Masterworks Festivals. Ms. Strommen commissioned and premiered the oboe concerto for oboe and string orchestra “Down a River of Time” by Eric Ewazen. Her recording of this work with the International Sejong Soloists, “Sejong Plays Ewazen,” has been released by Albany records.
Dr. Philip Jameson graduated from Wooster High School in 1959 and attended Baldwin Wallace College for one year.
Maximiano Valdés is a Chilean classical musician and orchestral conductor. He is the music director of the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra.
David Hattner is an American professional clarinetist and conductor currently serving as music director of the Portland Youth Philharmonic. Raised in Toledo, Ohio, Hattner attended the Interlochen Arts Camp and Arts Academy, experiences which inspired him to become a professional musician and conductor. He graduated from the Arts Academy in 1986 and enrolled in Northwestern University where he studied clarinet performance under Robert Marcellus. In 1988 he placed second in the International Clarinet Association's Young Artist Competition and was selected to join the American-Soviet Youth Orchestra. He earned a music degree with honors in 1990.
The Marrowstone Music Festival is an orchestral training program that takes place in the Pacific Northwest. The program is targeted at high school and college students, around 200 of which play in the program annually.
Abel Pereira is a Portuguese horn player. He played as soloist and principal horn in major European orchestras, such as Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Berlin Philharmonic and London Philharmonic Orchestra. Since 2014, he has been Principal Horn of Washington's National Symphony Orchestra. Pereira won several awards and prizes, including the 1998 European Master Prize.
Sean Shepherd is an American composer based in New York City and Chicago. His work has been performed by major orchestras, ensembles, and performers across the United States, Europe, and Asia. Performances include those with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the National Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and New World Symphony Orchestra, at festivals including the Aldeburgh Festival, Heidelberger Frühling, La Jolla Music Festival, Lucerne Festival, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, and Tanglewood, and with leading European ensembles including Ensemble Intercontemporain, the Scharoun Ensemble Berlin, the Asko|Schönberg Ensemble and the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group.
