Featured Artists
Hans Clebsch
Hans Clebsch joined The Cleveland Orchestra’s horn section as Third Horn in July of 1996. He made his Cleveland Orchestra solo debut in Schumann’s Konzertstück for Four Horns at the September 1997 Opening Night Celebration concert at Severance Hall conducted by Christoph von Dohnányi, and again performed in the work at concerts conducted by Pinchas Steinberg in February 2005.
A native of Knoxville, Tennessee, Mr. Clebsch attended the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, the Saint Louis Conservatory of Music, and the University of Tennessee. His instructors have included Thomas Bacon, William Bommelje, Michael Hatfield, William Ver Meulen, and Roland Pandolfi.
Prior to joining The Cleveland Orchestra, Mr. Clebsch performed as acting principal with both the Houston Ballet and Houston Grand Opera orchestras. He also worked with the Houston Symphony, where he served as acting associate principal horn. In 1988, he was appointed principal horn of the Mexico City Philharmonic by Enrique Bátiz. He also has performed with the orchestras of Nashville, Oregon, Austin, and San Antonio; the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra; the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy; the Seville Symphony Orchestra in Spain; and the Minería Symphony Orchestra in Mexico.
As a soloist, Hans has performed the Glière Concerto for Horn in Mexico with the Querétaro Philharmonic Orchestra under Music Director José Guadalupe Flores. In 1990, he was soloist with the Fine Arts Chamber Orchestra in Mexico City and Morelia, Michoacan, during the XII International New Music Forum.
Mr. Clebsch has given master classes from the United States to Mexico, China, and Turkey. He is the horn coach for the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra. Previously he taught horn at the Baldwin-Wallace College Conservatory of Music in Berea, Ohio, and currently enjoys teaching an active studio of high school students.
For the past four years Hans has worked as a volunteer for the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. In 2007 he joined as a collaborator on a major National Science Foundation Planetary Biodiversity grant awarded to Ohio State and Adelaide, Australia, Universities to study the Platygastroidea superfamily of parasitic wasps. Additionally he serves on the Natural Resources Committee at the Nature Center at Shaker Lakes, the Mentor Marsh Nature Preserve Committee, and the Dike 14 Nature Preserve Committee.
Hans resides in Shaker Heights, Ohio with his wife and 10 year old son. Both he and his son are members of the Cleveland Heights Speedskating team.
Alan DeMattia
Alan DeMattia’s future was predicted at birth by his great-grandfather, Enea Trovarelli, who observed that the baby had the lips and jaw structure of a French horn player. His prediction came true when, in the tenth grade at Cuyahoga Falls High School, Alan was encouraged by band director Royal Reynolds to switch from the cornet to the horn.
Alan subsequently earned a Bachelor of Music Education as a horn major at Kent State University and a Master of Music at the Cleveland Institute of Music. His major teachers were Roland Gamble, Samuel Gindin, and Richard Solis. Alan was Instructor of Horn at Cleveland State University from 1991 to 2003, having also served at Kent State University and at the Oberlin Conservatory. He currently teaches at Case Western Reserve University.
Alan began his orchestral performing career in 1980 as Principal Horn of the Canton Symphony. He was in the Ohio Chamber Orchestra as Principal Horn from 1981 to 1984, and has been Utility Horn in The Cleveland Orchestra since then. He has also been an avid chamber music performer, with membership in the New Cleveland Chamber Players (1981-1985), Cleveland Lyric Brass (1982-1990) and the Cleveland Octet (1991-1999). He has been an instructor at various music camps internationally, and was a clinician at the 34th International Horn Symposium of the International Horn Society, held in August 2002 in Lahti, Finland.
Alan lives in Novelty, Ohio with his wife, Suellen, and three children.
Lisa Ford
Lisa Ford has been Principal Horn of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra since 1993. She was previously Assistant Principal Horn of the San Diego Symphony, Principal Horn of Baltimore Opera, and Co-Principal Horn of the Florida West Coast Symphony .
A graduate of the Interlochen Arts Academy, she has played in the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, and has a degree in music performance from Norwegian State Academy of Music.
Lisa has appeared as soloist and guest instructor on many occasions including appearances with the Gothenburg Symphony, Gothenburg Wind Orchestra, at IHS conferences in Lahti, Alabama and Cape Town, the Nordic Horn workshop, and the hornclasses at Nove Strasice. An active chamber musician, Lisa is also a member of the modern music ensemble !Gageego!
Lisa Ford teaches horn at the Academy of Music and Drama at Gothenburg University, and is currently brass coordinator and horn advisor at the Swedish National Orchestra Academy (SNOA).
Randy Gardner
Randy C. Gardner is Professor of Horn and Chair of the Winds, Brass, and Percussion Department at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Prior to his 1996 appointment to the CCM faculty, he was Second Hornist of The Philadelphia Orchestra for more than twenty years under the batons of music directors Eugene Ormandy, Riccardo Muti, and Wolfgang Sawallisch.
Gardner earned the Bachelor of Music Degree with Distinction from Indiana University, where he was a student of Philip Farkas, and before beginning his performance career in the Miami (FL) Philharmonic, he was Distinguished Professor Farkas’ teaching assistant. Additional horn teachers included Christopher Leuba, Ethel Merker, and William Adam.
Randy Gardner held prior faculty positions with the Indiana University School of Music, Temple University’s Esther Boyer College of Music, New York State Summer School of the Arts, Philadelphia College of Bible, Trenton State College, New School of Music, and Luzerne (NY) Music Center. Randy is regularly a member of the Kendall Betts Horn Camp faculty. He has performed and presented masterclasses throughout the US and at many international venues. Former students have gone on to performing and teaching careers in the US, Europe, Asia, Mexico, and South America.
In addition to being a featured or contributing artist at international and regional workshops of the International Horn Society, Gardner served on the IHS Advisory Council from 1998-2004. He currently serves on the Board of Advisors for the International Horn Competition of America. His recital at the Beijing 2000 Symposium included the premiere of his unaccompanied horn solo, WHY?!. Workshop masterclass presentations have covered Mastering the Horn’s Low Register, Achieving Peak Performance, Powerful Practice Techniques, Audition Preparation, Effective Approaches to Teaching and Learning to Play the Horn, and other topics.
Gardner’s InternationalOpus method book, Mastering the Horn’s Low Register, is written for all hornists who wish to enjoy the many benefits that come with low register proficiency. Its pages comprehensively and systematically examine production and technique, then offer detailed preparation of thirty commonly required low and high horn excerpts that demand excellence in the low register. He was a performer and co-producer for the Summit Records CD: Shared Reflections, The Legacy of Philip Farkas, and he has written for The Horn Call.
Randy Gardner is an active recitalist and chamber musician, a member of the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, and a free-lance orchestral hornist with Cincinnati Symphony/Pops Orchestra and The Philadelphia Orchestra. He has also performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.
Outside of music, Randy enjoys spending time with his wife, Barbara, and their three sons. His interests include fishing and camping, sports, reading, church/community activism, and short wave radio listening. An eternal optimist, he is a life-long Chicago Cubs fan.
Lowell Greer
Lowell Greer has achieved high regard as a performer on both modern and historic horns. A former member of modern symphonies in Detroit, Toledo, Cincinnati, and Mexico City, he has performed in historic ensembles in Washington DC, San Francisco, Ann Arbor, Toronto, Vancouver, Cincinnati, Chicago, New York, Boston, North Carolina, and Dallas. As the laureate of seven nternational solo competitions for horn, notably in Cleveland, Atlanta, Vercelli, he has performed internationally as a horn soloist, and recorded most of the standard solo repertoire. He has since served on the juries of the Heldenleben, American, Bad Harzburg, and Yellow Springs Competitions.The construction of historic horns has always intrigued him, and he has replicated most of the common models of 18th and 19th century horns, training many of today's successful natural horn builders in the process. He has taught for Oakland University, Interlochen Arts Academy, Escuela de Perfeccionamiento, University of Cincinnati-CCM, the University of Michigan, and several other schools, and many former pupils now hold orchestral and academic positions of distinction. He holds six degrees, including Honorary Doctorates from the Geyer Guild and the St Joseph Conservatory.
Douglas Hill
Douglas Hill has served as Professor of Music-Horn at the University of Wisconsin since 1974. He is an Emily Mead Baldwin-Bascom Professor in the Creative Arts and Past President of the International Horn Society. He presently performs and records with the Wisconsin Brass Quintet and has played solo horn with the Rochester Philharmonic, New York City Ballet, Contemporary Chamber Ensemble of New York, Aspen Festival Orchestra, Henry Mancini and Andy Williams Orchestras, and for 30 years with the Madison Symphony. Hill was an original member of the Spoleto Festival Brass Quintet and has performed with the Wingra Woodwind Quintet, and the New York and American Brass Quintets.
Douglas Hill's extensive publications include Collected Thoughts on Teaching and Learning, Creativity, and Horn Performance (2001), Extended Techniques for the Horn (1981/1996), Introducing the Instruments: Horn Home Helper (2005), more than 30 articles, scores of original compositions and pedagogical etude books, the educational video/DVD Hill on Horn, and three solo recordings and a variety of orchestral and chamber ensemble recordings including Thoughtful Wanderings: Compositions by Douglas Hill, featuring alumni, faculty, students, and staff of the UW School of Music.
Professor Hill has been on the faculty at Oberlin Conservatory, Aspen Music School, Conservatories of Music in Beijing and Shanghai, Asian Youth Orchestra, Wilkes College, University of South Florida, Sarasota Music Festival, Yale Summer School at Norfolk, and at the Kendall Betts Horn Camp. He presently serves as the Wind and Brass Adjudicator and Coach for the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts. Recognized as one of only 20 international hornists to be included in Michael Meckna's book 20th Century Brass Soloists, Hill has appeared as soloist and clinician throughout the US, Germany, France, and China, including numerous international, national, and regional brass and horn workshops and symposia.
Richard King
Richard King began serving as principal horn of The Cleveland Orchestra in 1997, having joined the ensemble in 1988 as Associate Principal at the age of 20. Mr. King has been featured many times as soloist with the Cleveland Orchestra and has also appeared as soloist with the Tokyo Symphony and New Zealand's Auckland Philharmonia.
A native of Long Island, New York, Richard began playing the horn at the age of nine. He briefly attended New York's Juilliard School and subsequently earned a diploma from Philadelphia's Curtis Institute of Music. His primary horn teacher was former Cleveland Orchestra principal Myron Bloom. While at Curtis, he spent summers at the Tanglewood, Spoleto, and Schleswig-Holstein music festivals.
An active chamber musician and recitalist, Mr. King performs has performed as a member of the Center City Brass Quintet since 1985. Their five recordings on the Chandos label have been met with wide critical acclaim. He can be heard regularly at the Music in the Vineyards (California) and Bay Chamber Concerts (Maine) festivals and has recently released an album of Schubert Lieder transcribed for horn and piano on Albany Records.
Richard King is on the faculty at the Cleveland Institute of Music and the Kent/Blossom Music Professional training program. He lives in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, with his wife Julie and their children, Charlie and Amelia.
Frank Lloyd
As the fourth of five children, Frank Lloyd was born into a non-musical family in a little village called Splatt on the north Cornish coast on 26th August 1952. He took up the Trombone in his school brass band at the age of thirteen, and on leaving school at fifteen he joined the Royal Marines Band Service and subsequently changed to the French Horn.
In 1975 he left the services to embark on a course at the Royal Academy of Music studying under Ifor James. Within three months however, Frank was offered the post of Principal Horn with the Scottish National Orchestra, now called the Royal Scottish Orchestra. After four and a half years in Scotland he returned to London and took up a post with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, remaining with them for three years.
By this time his career was taking a different direction as his demand as a soloist and Chamber player increased. Soon after leaving the RPO he joined the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble, and the English Chamber Orchestra as Principal Horn and the Nash Ensemble Chamber Group. During this time he has performed as soloist as far afield as Winnipeg and Vancouver in Canada, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, China and Australia, South Africa and all parts of the USA. He has been featured on many occasions at the International Horn Workshops around the world. He tours Europe extensively, giving master classes, performing as a soloist, and as a member of groups such as German Brass and Ensemble Villa Musica. As a teacher, Frank was for several years’ professor of Horn at both the Guildhall School of Music and Trinity School of Music in London. In 1998 he was appointed to the position of Professor for Horn at the Folkwang-Hochschule in Essen, Germany, succeeding the previous professor, the renowned Hermann Baumann on his early retirement, forced by an untimely stroke at the age of 58.
Frank has several solo recordings on disc, including Strauss 1st with the Philharmonia Orchestra, Mozart’s Horn Quintet with the Nash Ensemble, together with other chamber works, and Britten’s Serenade with the City of London Sinfonia. He has recorded all of the Mozart Horn Concerti with Richard Hickox and the Northern Sinfonia Orchestra available on the Chandos label. His latest recording is another Britten Serenade, with Philip Langridge and the English Chamber Orchestra, recorded on the Collins Classics label. A much-acclaimed recital album, with Roger Vignoles is on the Merlin label.
Frank has recently been awarded a Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Music (FRAM) in recognition of his achievements in the music profession. From 2004-2006 he was President of the International Horn Society. He has settled in Essen with Rachel, who is one of the singing professors at the Hochschule, and her two young children.
Michael Mayhew
Michael Mayhew has been Associate Principal Horn of the Cleveland Orchestra since 1997. Prior to his appointment in Cleveland, he played in the Syracuse Symphony and the New World Symphony. He has also been on the faculty of the Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory of Music and the Kent-Blossom Music Festival. He resides in Shaker Heights, Ohio with his wife Becky, an oboist, and their two children, Dominic and Josephine.
Jesse McCormick, Co-Host
Jesse McCormick was appointed Second Horn with The Cleveland Orchestra in July 2006 at the beginning of the Blossom season. Prior to that Mr. McCormick held the positions of Fourth Horn with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra and Second Horn with The Denver Brass.
A native of Colorado Springs, Colorado, Mr. McCormick began horn studies with his mother Susan McCullough, Instructor of Horn at the Lamont School of Music, University of Denver. He continued his studies with Sally Ann Wilson, and went on to attend The Juilliard School. His primary horn teacher was New York Philharmonic Associate Principal Jerome Ashby.
Mr. McCormick's solo appearances include the 1998 International Horn Symposium in Banff, Canada as winner of the Jon Hawkins award and soloist with The Denver Brass. He has performed and recorded with Summit Brass, and has been a featured guest artist at Universities throughout the US. He can be heard on The Denver Brass recording, "John Williams", and recently released Cleveland Orchestra recordings of Bruckner's Fifth Symphony and Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.
Mr. McCormick has had the pleasure of participating in the Festival of the Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy, the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in Santa Cruz, California under the direction of Marin Alsop, and has served as faculty at the Kendall Betts Horn Camp which he attends annually. He is Lecturer of Horn at Baldwin-Wallace College Conservatory and Cleveland State University. Mr. McCormick enjoys skiing and hiking in the Colorado Mountains as often as his schedule will allow.
Susan McCullough, Host
Susan McCullough earned her Bachelors Degree in Music Performance from Emporia State University in 1975. She was featured as Principal Horn and soloist with the Air Force Academy Band in Colorado Springs, Colorado from 1975-78, and recently finished twenty-two years with the Colorado Springs Symphony Orchestra as 3rd and Principal Horn. Ms. McCullough is a founding member of The Denver Brass and has been performing with the Aries Brass Quintet since 1996. She has been a featured soloist and clinician of horn throughout the United States as well as in Japan and South Africa. In 2003, she had the pleasure of touring the United States as Principal Horn with the Lucerne Festival Strings, a highly esteemed Swiss chamber orchestra. Ms. McCullough has performed at Regional Horn Symposiums including the 2004 Western United States Horn Symposium in Las Vegas, Nevada and the 2005 Mid- South Horn Symposium in Austin, Texas, and has been featured at International Horn Symposiums held in Cape Town, South Africa in 2006 and in Switzerland in 2007. In June of 2007, she was a featured artist at the South African National Symposium which was held in Port Elizabeth. She performed on recitals from 2004-2006 at Kendall Betts Horn Camp in New Hampshire. A much sought after horn player in the Denver area, she regularly performs with many of Colorado's top ensembles including the Colorado Symphony, the Colorado Ballet, various opera companies and many of the Broadway shows that come to Denver. Ms. McCullough has been Instructor of Horn at Denver University’s Lamont School of Music since 1996.
Jennifer Montone
Jennifer Montone joined the Philadelphia Orchestra as Principal Horn in September 2006, and is currently on the faculty at both The Curtis Institute of Music and The Juilliard School. She was the Principal Horn of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra from 2003 to 2006, and formerly the Associate Principal Horn of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, where she was also an adjunct professor at Southern Methodist University. She is also a faculty performer at the Aspen Music Festival and School. Named the Paxman “Young Horn Player of the Year” in London in 1996, Ms. Montone has since won many solo competitions throughout the United States, including recently being awarded a prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2006. Her first solo CD is expected to be released fall of 2007. Hailed by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for her “superb control, gorgeous tone, accuracy and spirit”, Ms. Montone has performed as a soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Concerto Soloists of Philadelphia and Bellingham Festival Orchestra among others. A graduate of The Juilliard School, where she was a student of Julie Landsman, she enjoys contributing interviews and articles to books and magazines devoted to brass performance, and performs frequently as a featured artist at International Horn Society Workshops and International Women’s Brass Conferences.
As a chamber musician, Ms. Montone has performed and toured with Chamber
Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Enjoyable collaborations were also found at the La Jolla Summerfest, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Marlboro Music Festival, and Spoleto, Italy Chamber Music Festival. A native of northern Virginia, Ms. Montone began her intensive musical training in the National Symphony Orchestra Youth Fellowship Program studying with Edwin Thayer, and as a
fellow in the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra. She has performed with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, and the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, with whom she was awarded the position of Third Horn while still studying at Juilliard.
Brian O'Connor
Brian O’Connor has been involved in recording almost 2,000 films in the thirty plus years that he has participated as a first-call Los Angeles Studio Recording Musician. From 2000 until the present, he has participated in over 315 films and numerous TV shows. Aside from playing on such movies as "Titanic," "Finding Nemo," “War of the Worlds,” "Toy Story," "Cocoon," "The Bourne Identity," “Robin Hood," "Wyatt Earp," “Alive,” “High Anxiety,” “First Knight,” Capricorn One,” and "Along Came a Spider," he has played Principal and Solo Horn on “Évan Almighty,” “Flicka,” “Bridge to Terabithia,” “Cinderella Man,” “The Good German,” “The Pacifier,” “Chicken Little,” “Dreamer,” “Zathura,” “The Notebook,” "Blade 2," "Jurassic Park 2," 'Star Trek: First Contact," "Princess Diaries," "Cats and Dogs," Lion King,” “Crimson Tide,” "The Scorpion King," "Seabisquit," "All the Pretty Horses," "Austin Powers: The Spy That Shagged Me," "Austin Powers 2," "Beverly Hills Ninja" and “Scorpion King” to name a few. He has been Principal Horn on the TV shows "Star Trek: The Next Generation," "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine," "Star Trek: Enterprise," “The Young Riders” and “The Carol Burnett Show.” He participated in the live performance of John William’s "ET" on the 25th Anniversary concert at the Shrine Auditorium, which was added to the re-release of "ET" on the 25th Anniversary DVD. In addition to his recording work, Brian O’Connor has been President of the Recording Musicians Association – Los Angeles for six years and has taught Horn at UCLA for eight years. He has been a member of the Pacific Serenades chamber music group for a number of years and has performed in many memorable concerts of famous and newly composed chamber music that include Horn. O’Connor was Principal Horn of the American Ballet Theater Orchestra in Los Angeles for ten years and played Principal Horn for many Broadway shows for over twenty years including “Sweeney Todd” and the original production of “Phantom of the Opera.” He is one of the most recorded Horn players in the world and people in every country around the world have heard his work including both Principal and Section performances in the Academy Awards many times in addition to all of his Film, TV, Record, Jingle, Live Television and Video Game recordings.
Bruno Schneider
The Swiss horn player Bruno Schneider began playing the horn at the Music Conservatory in La Chaux-de-Fonds with Robert Faller. After having passed the Professional Capacity diploma there in 1979, he went on to study at the Music Academy in Detmold with Michael Hoeltzel, where he received a Virtuosity with distinction in 1981.
After having held the position of Solo Horn in Zürich, Münich and Geneva in the OSR (Suisse Romande Orchestre), he now teaches at the Music Conservatory in Geneva and at the Musikhochschule in Freiburg, Germany.
Mr. Schneider has performed many compsitions written for him by numerous composers, including Norbert Moret, Jost Meyer, Eric Chasalow, and Jörg Widmann. Founder of the Académie de cor de La Chaux de Fonds and of the Swiss Horn Society, Mr. Schneider is currently Vice President of the International Horn Society.
He has been a featured soloist in many of the World's premier concert halls and a chamber musician with, amongst others, Sabine Meyer, Gidon Kremer, Vadim Repin and Jeremy Menuhin. A substantial amount of horn repertoire has been recorded by Bruno Schneider on AVI, EMI, CLAVES, ARION, ERATO and CPO record labels. Since 2003, Bruno Schneider has played Solo Horn with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra directed by Claudio Abbado.
Bruno Schneider has lived in Basel, Switzerland since 1994.
Bernhard Scully
Bernhard Scully is the newly appointed principal horn of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. Previous to this post, he was the horn player of the Canadian Brass for three seasons. During his time with the Canadian Brass he performed in sixteen countries, on three separate continents, and recorded four CD’s as well as a music video, which topped the “Top Ten” on Canada’s Bravo Music Video Countdown. He has performed in many of the world’s finest concert halls, and many of these performances have included sharing the stage with some of the world’s greatest symphony orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Vancouver Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, National Arts Centre Orchestra, Toronto Symphony, and many others. He has given master-classes all over the world to thousands of students, has been on faculty at the Music Academy of the West, and at the Eastman School of Music.
Bernhard received his undergraduate degree with honors at Northwestern University, studying with Gail Williams and Roland Pandolfi. He received his masters degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he was a Paul Collins Distinguished Fellow, studying with Douglas Hill. In high school he studied with Kendall Betts of the Minnesota Orchestra (ret.). Other influential teachers include Hermann Baumann and Froydis Ree Werkre. He has won numerous awards through the years from such organizations as the National Foundation for the Advancement in the Arts, WAMSO, and many others.
A passionate teacher, Bernhard has been part of the Kendall Betts Horn Camp in Littleton NH, being on the faculty there for five summers. This past summer he was appointed as visiting professor of horn at the Eastman School of Music. He has given master classes all over the country and maintains an active private teaching studio. He performs often as a soloist, and has just finished recording a solo CD for Hal Leonard Publishing on their educational series, which will be available in the summer of 2008.
Bernhard is married to Sarah Scully, a music therapist and flute player. They are the proud parents of their daughter, Eleanor Joy Scully. They enjoy exercising, cooking, being involved in their church and their community, and playing with their Maine Coon cat, Sibelius.
Richard Solis
Richard Solis grew up in Las Vegas, Nevada where, while still in high school, he played in show bands on the Las Vegas Strip with such famous performers as Eddie Fisher, Andy Williams, Tony Martin and Cyd Charisse, and Judy Garland.
After high school he attended The Cleveland Institute of Music from 1965-69 where he studied with Myron Bloom.
Rick has been a member of The Cleveland Orchestra since 1971 when he joined the orchestra as assistant principal French horn. He became acting principal in the 1976-77 season and was appointed principal in 1978. In the 1996 season he stepped down from the principal chair and moved to fourth horn.
Rick is presently Chairman of the horn department at The Cleveland Institute of Music where he has taught since 1977.
He has also been artist in residence at The University of Delaware, attended the Marlboro Music
Festival for five summers, and was Principal French Horn at the Casals Festival from 1976-78.
Rick’s recordings include chamber music from Marlboro, and can be heard as principal French horn on over 100 recordings with The Cleveland Orchestra.
Adam Unsworth
Adam Unsworth is Associate Professor of Horn at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Prior to his joining the faculty at Michigan, he spent nine years as a member of the horn section of The Philadelphia Orchestra and three years in the Detroit Symphony. Adam has appeared as a recitalist and clinician at many universities throughout the United States, and has performed solo and chamber concerts at Carnegie's Weill Recital Hall. He leads his own jazz group, the Adam Unsworth Ensemble, which released the critically acclaimed CD, Excerpt This! in 2006. A groundbreaking recording for the French horn, it looks to redefine the virtuosic boundaries of the instrument in the jazz idiom. Featured on the CD are five of Unsworth's original compositions for jazz sextet. The group is embarked on its first U.S. tour in October 2007.
Gail Williams
Gail Williams is an internationally recognized hornist and brass pedagogue. She has presented concerts, master classes, recitals and lectures throughout North America, as well as in Europe and Asia. Ms. Williams joined the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in December 1978, and was appointed Associate Principal Horn in 1984, a position she held until her retirement from the orchestra in 1998. She has been a member of the Chicago Lyric Opera Orchestra, and is currently principal horn of the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra. As featured horn soloist, Ms. Williams has performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, San Antonio Symphony, Sinfonia da Camera, New World Symphony Orchestra, the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra, Syracuse Symphony, Fairbanks Symphony Orchestra, Green Bay Symphony Orchestra and a number of regional orchestras. In 2004, Ms. Williams performed as Principal Horn with the Saito Kenin Orchestra with Maestro Ozawa in Matsumoto, Japan and in 2005 and 2007 she performed as Principal horn with the World Orchestra for Peace under the direction of Maestro Gergiev presenting concerts in London, Berlin, Moscow, Beijing, Budapest, Rotterdam, and Brussels.
Ms. Williams is also dedicated to performing and promoting chamber music. She has performed with the Vermeer Quartet, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in New York City ,The Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, The Skaneateles Music Festival, Sante Fe Chamber Music Festival and the Olympic Peninsula Chamber Festival and was the featured artist on a chamber music series in Ottawa, Canada with the National Arts Orchestra of Canada. She is a founding member of the Chicago Chamber Musicians; a critically acclaimed chamber music ensemble which has commissioned and performed works for their Millennium concert series and the CCM’s concert series. A CD of all Mozart works, including the Horn quinitet, was nominated for a Grammy in 2006. Gail is also an original member of the Summit Brass, an ensemble with whom she has made eight recordings.
In addition to her recordings with Summit Brass, Ms. Williams can be heard on her solo recordings, 20th Century Settings and Deep Remembering, which are available on Summit Records. An additional solo CD has been released by Northwestern University, Goddess Triology, featuring compositions by John McCabe and two works for horn percussion by Charles Taylor and Eric Wilder.
Ms. Williams has played an active role in commissioning projects and performing contemporary solo works for the horn. In 1995, she premiered Deep Remembering by Dana Wilson, and Anthony Plog’s Postcards at the International Horn Society Workshop in Yamagata, Japan. In 1997, she premiered Dana Wilson’s Horn Concerto with the Syracuse Symphony. A year later, Ms. Williams performed the Knussen Horn Concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Maestro Knussen. She helped commission Yehudi Wyner’s Horn Trio, and was involved in the orchestration of Dragons in the Sky by Mark Schultz. Ms. Williams premiered another horn and piano work by Dana Wilson, Musings, in 2003 and performed both this work and his concerto at the 2005 International Horn Society Workshop. Gail performed the US premier of a concerto for Horn and Orchestra by Collins Matthews at Northwestern University in June of 2005.
Ms. Williams has given master classes and recitals around the world, working with musicians at The Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music, New England Conservatory, San Francisco Conservatory, the New World Symphony, Eastman School of Music, Boston Conservatory, Rice University, University of Houston, University of Illinois, Sam Houston University, University of Wisconsin-Madison and the NAC Orchestra (Ottawa). In 1998, Ms. Williams was invited to be on the faculty of Swiss Brass Week in Leukerbad, Switzerland where she returned in 1999 and 2000. Ms. Williams conducted brass classes and performed a recital in Malmo, Sweden for one week in March of 1999. As a member of Summit Brass, she has been coaching young brass musicians since 1986. And since 1980, Ms. Williams has been a featured recitalist and lecturer at the International Horn Society Workshops in the United States, Canada, Japan and Germany. In 2001 and 2005, Gail served as one of the judges for the Horn Solo Competition in Porcia, Italy.
Gail Williams is the horn professor at Northwestern University, where she has been on the faculty since 1989. In May of 2005, Ms. Williams received the Charles Deering McCormick Teaching Professorship. With the award, she will commission and perform three new chamber works for horn and mixed instruments by Douglas Hill, Dana Wilson and Augusta Reed Thomas. Ms. Williams studied with John Covert at Ithaca College, and received a Master’s degree from Northwestern University. Her awards from Ithaca College include the Ithaca College’s Young Distinguished Alumni Award and an honorary Doctorate of Music.
