Videos from IHS 48 - Ithaca
Ithaca Impressions: A Video Collage
A Taste of Brazil: Radegundis Tavares shows us how to make tapioca cakes!
Lesson for a Peak Performance
by Gail Williams
In thinking about this article, so many people have given wonderful advice and perspective. I thought I would add to what has been written and add some of my soul-searching ideas. How does one teach students to think about the importance of practicing now for the future? We are so worried and stressed about the present; we forget we are preparing for the next 40+ years.
HOW? Let us think about building a big Triangle and the concept of a big base for success and longevity. (these concepts were taken from Hal Higdon’s marathon book). Injuries occur when our training is short, or our base of our triangle is short. Mental training, flexibility, strength and endurance all come from the base of this triangle.
If we think that the left part of the triangle is our left-brain, and right side of triangle is the performing, we can start to build this base and have a very high peak of the triangle for a peak performance.
Mental training, where to start? If I were to have time to list all the books that are now available, this article would be VERY long. But a good starting place would be “Inner Game of Tennis” by Timothy Gallwey, “Audition Success and Performance Success” by Don Greene, “Talent Code” by Daniel Coyle, to name a few, but Everyone needs to find their own focus. Meditation, biofeedback, yoga and many other options are a few suggestions. In this fast paced world, we all need to choose “something”! Learning your best way to “stay in the music,” as Mr. Herseth would say and “always Perform and Sing.”
Kerry Turner - Rimon Commissions
Kerry Turner Discusses his compositions that were commissioned with support from the Meir Rimon Commissioning Assistance Fund. Click the image to see the video.
James Naigus - Rimon Commisions
James Naigus, currently Visiting Assistant Professor of Horn at the University of Iowa, is our youngest featured artist in this month’s newsletter. His teachers include Paul Basler, Jeffrey Agrell, Bryan Kennedy, Adam Unsworth, and Soren Hermansson. James is a frequent guest artist at IHS regional and international symposia, most recently at IHS47 in Los Angeles. His sonorous, melodic compositions have enjoyed increasing popularity in the horn world of late, including two works written through the Meir Rimon Commissioning Assistance Fund: Beale Suite (for horn quartet) and Spectra (for horn, trombone, and piano.)
Have a listen to both of these pieces here:
Beale Street: https://soundcloud.com/jnaigus/sets/beale-suite
Spectra: https://soundcloud.com/jnaigus/sets/spectra-demo
For more recordings and information, please visit http://jamesnaigus.com/home.html
Six Quick Fixes to Horn Playing
Bill VerMeulen, Principal Horn of the Houston Symphony Offers his Six Quick Fixes. Click the image to see the video.
A Lifelong Dance with the Horn
“Music may not always feed my pocketbook. But it always feeds my soul” – a lifelong dance with the horn
by Laurie Heidt
"Long enough to know better . . ."
That's my usual quip when folks ask how long I've played the horn, because it wasn’t my original instrument of choice. I’d been a trumpet player, like both my parents and my grandfather, for 6 years when a horn was thrust upon me at the end of 7th grade.
But during junior year in high school, my passion for playing the horn burst forth due to an epiphany. For the first time, I saw a live performance of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony. That opening fanfare, that splendidly heroic timbre that I had known and loved from my parents’ vinyl record collection since I was two years old, was played by a section of HORNS! The very instrument I held in my hands had that power hidden somewhere inside, under layers of after beats, and I was going to find it…
From that very moment I knew the horn would be in my life forever.
As if winning an audition to play with the All-Northwest Band in Portland, Oregon - and hearing that Tchaikovsky from the All-Northwest Orchestra – wasn’t already exciting enough for a high school kid from Butte, Montana,there were more thrills to come that year. I’d also won a scholarship to the 4th International Horn Society Workshop in Bloomington, Indiana. And in June, I found myself surrounded for a week by 400 horn players from around the world. I was completely awestruck by the performances and coaching by legendary hornists. Memories of hearing Konzertstück for the first time played by the Chicago Symphony horns and our massed horn choir playing Hansel and Gretel still give me chills to this day. I joined IHS on the spot. It was as if fate wanted to make sure the horn would always be a part of me.
From then on, 44 years ago, my passion for the horn grew stronger with every twist and turn life brought me. I played, and soloed, with the Butte Symphony, where Mom, Dad, and I comprised over half the brass section. I owe my musical genes and a debt of gratitude for unwavering support to my parents and family. And I owe my initial musical foundation to five years of lessons with band director Ardith Palmerlee, a trumpet player herself. During high school, Mom drove me long distances to my first horn lessons with Terry Reynolds in Bozeman, who established my solid groundwork for horn playing. Later, I studied for a summer with Nancy Cochran Block, the horn professor at U of M in Missoula.
IHS 2016
Our 48th Symposium is in ITHACA, NY!
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