Andrew Bain - "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" and the LA recording studios
Kristina Mascher-Turner: The first question on everyone’s mind is, how long did it take you to recover from hosting #IHSLA2015?
Andrew Bain: I think I'm still recovering! It was such a wonderful week that I've been living off the memories for quite a while. Thank you to everyone who came to LA for the event.
KMT: In addition to your playing duties in the Los Angeles Philharmonic, you’ve been an active Hollywood studio musician. What are the most memorable movie soundtracks you’ve recorded?
AB: Well... Star Wars was AMAZING! I also really enjoyed the Good Dinosaur, Creed and Rwanda and Juliet which were recorded over the Summer. Other's that come to mind are Godzilla, Minions and Night at The Museum 3 which were all fun and terrific music.
KMT: You’ve recently played on the soundtrack to Star Wars: The Force Awakens. How does it feel to be involved with such a legendary project?
AB: It was honestly a dream come true to work with John Williams and play this incredible score. As horn players we grow up listening to John Williams' music and the Star Wars soundtracks. It was a thrill each day to go to the studio to record The Force Awakens. I still can't believe I was lucky enough to be involved.
KMT: How far in advance did the musicians receive the music?
AB: The recording took place over a number of months and many sessions so we received the music to each session 3-5 days prior to the recording date.
KMT: Start to finish, how long did it take to record the whole soundtrack? How many hours did you spend in each session?
AB: The whole project was from June to mid-November which is quite unusual for a film recording. I'm not sure of the exact number but I think we recorded over 20 and 30 sessions of 3 hours’ duration. Sessions were usually grouped in 2 per day and 2-3 days at a time.
What Arnold Jacobs Taught Me
by Thomas Jöstlein, associate Principal Horn, St. Louis Symphony
Lessons with Arnold Jacobs were memorable from the second you entered the Fine Arts Building in downtown Chicago. There was the next door "Artists' Cafe" (that must be where the CSO players all eat after shows!), the ornate iron, glass and woodwork, and of course the smiling older gentleman who operated the elevator, with its accordion-style metal door. Seventh floor!
I arrived early enough for my first lesson to look around: the broom closet at the end of the hall ("William Shatner School of Acting," it read), the shrill voice lessons next door, and of course Jacobs' Santa Claus voice wafting out to the hallway.
The door finally opened, revealing both the legend himself, and also my former Interlochen Arts Camp horn teacher, Randy Faust, smiling from jowl to jowl. I knew I'd be fine.
Jacobs, the longtime Tubist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, was known as THE brass teacher for decades. I have my summer horn teacher, Nancy Fako, to thank for the idea of seeing him ("maybe he'll put a bug in your ear"), and my teacher at Rice University, Bill VerMeulen, for the phone call to Jacobs that got me "in." (I remember Jake testing and teasing me for a year, having me call every three weeks at certain times, to see how committed I was. My pay phone call from super loud Comiskey Park was especially tricky to manage, but it paid off).
My first lesson began with the usual measuring of my vital capacity on a large metal machine, resulting in a rather paltry five liter reading. "With your height (6'4") and age (21), you ought to be well in excess of six liters."
"Unfortunately, we need to work on respiration, and not music."
Out came the breathing bags, the tubes with ping-pong balls, the anatomy charts. I mastered these quickly enough to warrant a try on the horn.
What followed next sticks with me to this day: Jake quickly put the focus NOT on the respiration, but indeed, on the MUSIC.
Guest Interview - Dale Clevenger with Roland Berger
This month, we have the pleasure of listening in on a conversation between two of the greatest horn players of the 20th century. Dale Clevenger (who needs no introduction here) recently spoke with the legendary Austrian hornist Roland Berger, former solo horn of the Vienna Philharmonic, by telephone. The topic was Bruckner’s 4th Symphony, how it feels to perform it, the role of the conductor, as well as other insights into an illustrious career spanning decades. I’ve transcribed and translated the original interview for our December newsletter. (Yes, among his many talents, Maestro Clevenger speaks German!)
There’s a link at the bottom of the interview so you can hear his artistry for yourself. -Kristina Mascher-Turner
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| Roland Berger in 1965 |
Dale Clevenger: In your career, you've played Bruckner 4 many times, with many different conductors.
Roland Berger: Yes.
DC: Can you tell us how it is for you to play Bruckner 4 on the Vienna horn, and how it is with different conductors for rehearsals, concerts, for recordings, and tours?
RB: The problem is always Bruckner 4, not the conductor. The conductor is immaterial. Bruckner 4 remains equally hard, no matter who's conducting.
I've played it with Knappertsbusch, with Böhm, with Karajan, with Maazel, with...
DC: With Solti?
RB: No.
DC: No? Anyone else?
RB: Hmmm, it's now difficult to say. No one comes to mind at the moment.
DC: So, with Vienna horn, what is different? Is it more difficult?
RB: Well, I believe Bruckner 4 is a large task for any horn. It doesn't have anything specially to do with Vienna horn.
DC: I think Vienna horn is much...
RB: Yes, everything is a little harder.
DC: I think Vienna horn is much harder.
RB: Once I played a series (of them)- I think in one season, I played Bruckner 4 13 or 15 times.
DC: Yes?
RB: it gets much easier then. If you only play Bruckner 4 once every 5 years, it's always the same story - you have more tension. If you play something like this often, you think, yeah, it's generally gone well (in the past.) You have trust in yourself. Once on a tour through Germany, I had to play Bruckner 4 four times in a row. By the last of the four concerts, I was totally relaxed and calm. You get used to this, and when you're successful, you have more self-confidence.
A most unique horn technician/builder: a look at Bruce Tubbs
by Andrew Pelletier
Horn technicians and builders tend to be highly original, maybe even quirky, individuals; but I have not experienced one quite as unique and fascinating as Bruce Tubbs, of Ottawa Lake, Michigan. Just about 30 minutes from Toledo, Ohio, a trip to his 1870s farmhouse to see his “shop” (and also the extensive shop of his wife, Ann, who is an artisan potter) is always an event to remember. I use quotes around the word “shop” as Bruce has converted the tiny root cellar of the house into his shop, hanging bells and horns from the rafters to make the most of the limited floor space.
Bruce came to his trade late, and from an interesting and meandering path. Raised in Lansing MI, Bruce studied with Doug Campbell at Michigan State University, graduating with a Bachelor of Science in 1966. He went into the Peace Corps for a year, and then found himself teaching junior high school in inner city Detroit in 1967, the year of the riots − his school was, indeed, set on fire during one of them. From there, he taught in Saginaw MI, Washington DC, cofounded Spring Elementary School in Boulder CO, and then cofounded the Upland Hill Farm School in Oxford MI. He and Anne then moved to Connecticut, where Bruce worked as a carpenter, and was a self-employed artisan cabinet-maker.
In 1979, they moved back to the Midwest, this time to Toledo, where Bruce was building furniture and working as a building supervisor in Ann Arbor MI. Then, quite unexpectedly, Bruce began to suffer severe pain due to Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and had to change careers. He went back to teaching, joining the faculty at Maumee Valley Country Day School, in Toledo, in 1990. Of great importance to us horn players, he rediscovered his love for the horn in 1992 when he found his old cherished Reynolds Chambers model in Chicago at a friend’s repair shop. He started “fooling around” (his words) with repair and customization in 1995, and when he retired from teaching in 2010, threw himself into full-time horn repair work and custom building.
New Member Benefit
We continue to add videos by prominent performers and teachers to the Horn Excerpts section of the website, for IHS members only. New this month are six videos by Randy Gardner, discussing excerpts from Dvořak's Symphony No. 9. If you're not a member, JOIN NOW to view these videos.
Ion Balu Interview
l to r: Steve Lewis, Dietmar Dürk, Jacob Medlin, Felix Cantesanu, Ion Balu, on their way to Venice Beach during IHS LA 2015.
Kristina Mascher-Turner: Ion, I can imagine you in your room as a kid, coming up with inventions based on whatever was at hand. Have you always had the urge to create new things?
Ion Balu: When I was six years old, I was sent to a special music school run by the Romanian communist government. I lived in a dorm along with other students, so we didn't have our own private space. I remember very clearly my visits back home, which averaged to about two and a half months a year. Once, I made a very basic, simple radio, and I used my mom's clothes line as an antenna. I made a tiny hole in the window frame, and late at night I would pull in a wire to my radio, and I would just sit there for hours transfixed listening to faraway radio stations. I should mention that under the communists we were so isolated from the world, that it's not even funny. Imagine North Korea now, but with absolutely no computers, internet, cell phone etc. This was the 80's. So, listening to random AM stations was a very cool way (for me) to connect to the outside world.
KMT: Would you say that growing up in a different culture has encouraged you to think outside of the box? If so, how?
IB: Definitely! I think the sheer lack of tools or information helped us come up with extremely creative solutions to problems that would arise. Nowadays, we have the "interwebs", and you can Google anything and basically come up with a solution. Not then. I remember once our football got punctured, and there was no option to buy a new one, I walked around the city and found a shoe repair shop that gave me some contact cement and some leather remnants. I easily patched up the ball.
Another time, I bought an electric guitar, and I completely reshaped the design using just very basic tools. A hack saw, sandpaper, and some auto body filler. I took it to a auto body shop to paint it, and the dude there was mesmerized at how good the finish was, and he offered me a job on the spot, saying something like, "You can make a lot of money fixing dents on cars...". I'm glad I didn't take that job and stayed with my music, otherwise I would've never been here now.
KMT: How did you come to make your first mute? Describe your work space and available materials.
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