W. Peter Kurau
W. Peter Kurau has been active as soloist, orchestral player, clinician, author, and teacher. He has been featured at international and regional symposia and workshops sponsored by the IHS and other professional organizations. Peter is currently the horn professor at the Eastman School of Music, director of the Eastman Horn Choir, and principal horn of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra.
Peter came from a musical background; his mother was a soprano singer and his father an organist. He studied at the Eastman School of Music, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Royal College of Music, University of Connecticut, and Florida State University. His principal horn teachers were Verne Reynolds, David Cripps, William Capps, and Horace Fitzpatrick (natural horn).
Peter has also taught the University of Missouri-Columbia, SUNY-Genesee, Nazareth College, Roberts Wesleyan College, and Houghton College, as well as presenting master classes throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. In addition to the Rochester Philharmonic, he has also performed with the St. Louis Symphony, Erie Philharmonic, Chautauqua Symphony, Grand Teton Festival Orchestra, Syracuse Symphony, and Sun Valley Symphony. He has commissioned and premiered new works for horn by Verne Reynolds, James Willey, John Cheetham, and others.
He was a winner in the Heldenleben International Horn Competition, a recipient of an ITT International Fellowship for study in the United Kingdom, and was an Artistic Ambassador for the United States Information Agency, presenting concerts and classes in Serbia-Montenegro, Kazakhstan, Syria, and Macedonia.
In addition to hosting the 29th International Horn Symposium (1997) and participating in many other symposiums, and hosting the first American Horn Competition (precursor to the International Horn Competition of the Americas), Peter served on the IHS Advisory Council (1993-2001), as Secretary-Treasurer (1994-1998), and as Vice President (1998-2000). He was given the Punto Award at the 2016 international symposium in Ithaca NY.
Alan Robinson
Alan Robinson and his brother, Gale, were an important part of the Los Angeles studios starting in the 1940s. Gale died in 2006 and Alan is now retired. Alan played the memorable horn part in God Only Knows.
Alan was five years younger than Gale and started to learn horn in junior high school while Gale was away fighting in World War II. He started playing in the Los Angeles Youth Orchestra at age 13; his first movie credit was Humoreque with the youth orchestra. At Los Angeles City College, he studied geology and psychology because, “Music was my life. I knew all about music, so I wanted to learn about other things.”
Alan played in the Utah Symphony for three years before returning to Los Angeles to 20th Century Fox, playing second to Alfred Brain and then Vincent DeRosa. From the 1950s into the 1980s, he traveled between Las Vegas and Los Angeles to perform with leading artists such as the Beach Boys, Barbra Streisand, Dizzy Gillespie, Peggy Lee, Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, and Earth, Wind, and Fire. His movie credits at 20th Century Fox include The King and I, Carousel, Spartacus, and The Sound of Music.
Alan became a house painter and real estate agent during the musicans’ strike in 1958, and toured with the National Orchestra of Mexico, then in the Los Angeles Philharmonic, finally joining Gale in a tour of the Pittsburgh Symphony in 1964. Back in Los Angeles in the freelancing era, Alan played on television series The Waltons and Starsky and Hutch; movies include The Muppet Movie, Star Trek I, and To Kill a Mockingbird. His last studio session was for television in the early 1980s.
See Annie Bosler’s article on the Robinson Brothers in the February 2007 issue of The Horn Call.
David Duke (d. 2024)
David Duke played in the UCLA band in the 1950s and was sought after in Hollywood studios since the 1960s. He was a member of the Westwood Wind Quintet and played with ensembles such Henry Mancini, the Monterey Jazz Orchestra, Neil Norman, and the Abnuceals Emuukha Eletric Orchestra (organized by Frank Zappa).
David performed with countless artists and composers for over four decades, including Cannonball Adderley, Teresa Brewer, Dizzy Gillespie, Randy Newman, Kenny Rogers, Arturo Sandoval, Doc Severinsen, John Williams, and Nancy Wilson. Recordings include The Beach Boys, The Carpenters, Natlie Cole, Judy Collins, Miles Davis, John Denver, Neil Diamond, Ella Fitzgerald, Quincy Jones, Johnny Mathis, Prince, and Frank Sinatra.
Movie soundtracks include Agent Cody Banks, Along Came a Spider, Cats and Dogs, The Chronicles of Riddick, Collateral Damage, The Color Purple, Constantine, Dragonfly, Dreamcatcher, Elf, King Kong, The Legend of Zorro, Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, Looney Tunes: Back in Action, Meet the Fockers, Panic Room, Paycheck, Peter Pan, Red Dawn, Rocky II, Star Trek: Nemesis, Under the Tuscan Sun, and War of the Worlds.
Christopher Larkin
Chris Larkin is Chairman of the British Horn Society, has special interest in historical brass instruments and period horn playing, and is also a conductor.
Chris was born in Wigan in Northwestern England and started playing in his school's brass band. He studied at the Northern School of Music with Peter Rider and Julian Baker and at the Royal Academy with James Brown. He has been a member since 1973, and Director since 1982, of the London Gabrieli Brass Ensemble, and has a passion for unearthing and publishing original music for brass. He has been a member of the BBC Symphony Orchestra since 1979 and has conducted many brass and wind programs for various radio stations around the world.
Chris has researched and recorded CDs of French music for organ and brass, 19th-century brass music and 20th-century American music (including music of Charles Ives) for the Hyperion label. For the 1996 BBC Ives Festival, he created an open-air re-enactment of a George Ives brass band collision in London’s Leadenhall Market. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of brass instruments and often gives lecture-demonstrations, entitled Around the Horn, on horns through the ages. His most recent recording for Hyperion, Antique Brasses, was made entirely on period brass instruments.
Chris owns an extensive collection of historical horns, including two hand horns, two Kruspe crooked rotary valve horns, a Vienna horn, a Raoux piston valve horn, four trompes d'Orléans, a trompe Dauphine, a trompe Dufouilloux, three cow horns, and an althorn.
Chris was elected an Honorary Member in 2014 at the IHS Symposium in London, where he performed on trompes-de-chasse and the Vienna horn.
Michael Thompson
Michael Thompson has had a varied career – principal horn in major British orchestras, an international soloist, professor of horn, and conductor.
Mike was born in 1954. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music, and was appointed principal horn with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra at age 18. At age 21, he became principal horn in the Philharmonia, leaving after 10 years to concentrate on his solo and chamber music career.
Numerous solos, premieres, recordings, movie sound tracks, work with Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, the Michael Nyman Band, and Sir Paul McCartney (Stately Horn), conductor of the Ulster Youth Orchestra and City of Rochester Symphony Orchestra, and Fellow and Aubrey Brain Professor of Horn at the Royal Academy indicate the breadth and depth of his accomplishments. He has been especially acclaimed for his inspiring leadership and work with young musicians. As a member of the London Sinfonietta, he has given many first performances, including the UK premieres of Ligeti's Hamburg Concerto and Richard Ayres's Noncerto.
Recordings include solo repertoire, on period instruments, and with his wind quintet and horn quartet. Numerous soundtracks as a studio musician include Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and Bond films. He plays a Paxman horn.
Mike was honored with the Punto Award at the IHS symposium in London, where he conducted several concerts.
Michael Hernon (1940-2019)
Michael Hernon spent much of his life (38 years) at the University of Tennessee Martin, loved working with the students, and would have never retired except for health issues. He played in regional orchestras, taught horn students, directed a horn choir, and taught music history, which was a satisfying life. He considered his fine professional career to be capped by the Punto Award − a surprise, shock, and joy. He had no idea that he was to receive the award until his name was called from the stage, but several former students were with him, which made the moment especially satisfying.
Michael taught, in addition to horn and music history, music appreciation, brass repertoire, and pedagogy, attaining the rank of Professor Emeritus. He conducted horn choirs, brass choirs, and recorder ensembles. Prior to his tenure at UTM, Michael was a faculty member of Brescia University and taught in the public schools in Owensboro and Scottsville, Kentucky. He served for many years in the horn sections of the Jackson TN, Owensboro KY, and Paducah KY symphony orchestras.
Michael studied at Murray State University in Kentucky, Western Kentucky University, and Peabody College (now part of Vanderbilt University), completing his PhD in 1972. Ed Pease, a hornist and musicologist at Western Kentucky who had studied with Willi Apel at Indiana University, inspired Michael in both horn playing and musicology. Michael took great pleasure in teaching music history and published a discography, French Horn Discography, published by Greenwood Press.
Michael particularly enjoyed directing a horn choir of his students, former students, members of the Jackson Symphony, and amateurs. They performed a concert, with up to twelve players, at the end of every semester. Former students include Mary Bisson (who brought Barry Tuckwell to visit) and Dan Spencer, who went on to earn a PhD at the University of Iowa.
Michael retired in 2011 because of his health. He was a lifelong member of the IHS and was presented with the Punto Award at the 2013 IHS Symposium in Memphis.
Jack Covert
Jack Covert (born 1937) is known especially for his years of teaching at Ithaca College in New York State (1966-1996), where he was honored with the Dana Professor Distinguished Teaching Award. Many former students play professionally and/or teach at music conservatories, including Martha Glaze-Zook (Philadelphia Orchestra), Gail Williams (Chicago Symphony, Northwestern University), Jon Menkis (Boston Symphony, New England Conservatory), Richard Graef (Indianapolis Symphony), and Rick Menaul (Boston free-lance, Boston University). Jack also taught at the University of Memphis (1965-1966) and at elementary schools in Livonia, New York.
Jack's music education was at the Eastman School of Music, where he studied with Fred Bradley in the Preparatory Division, with Milan Yancich while earning a BME degree (1959) and Performer's Certificate, and with Verne Reynolds for an MME degree (1965).
Orchestral playing includes the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, Memphis Symphony, Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, Northeastern Pennsylvania Orchestra, and Natal Philharmonic Orchestra in Durbin, South Africa. While teaching at Ithaca College, he also played in the Ithaca Woodwind Quintet and Ithaca Brass Quintet.
Yamaha Brass sent Jack to South Africa in 1974 to work with indigenous brass bands and at universities. He returned to South Africa and Namibia in 1982 to work at a number of universities, concertizing, giving master classes, and consulting on curriculums. Since retiring, he has continued to teach and play: guest teacher at Eastman, sabbatical replacement at Northwestern University, and a season with the Syracuse Symphony.
Jack was honored with the Punto Award at the 2013 IHS Symposium in Memphis, Tennessee.
