Teaching in Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, Spain

In 1989 when i came to Gran Canaria to play principal horn with the Gran Canaria Philharmonic (www.ofgrancanaria.com), I also immediately started teaching at the orchestra academy. I had the privilege to coach some very talented students, including Antonio Hernandez (currently principal with the municipal wind band of Las Palmas) and Raul Ortiz (currently principal and my colleague in the Gran Canaria Philharmonic). During their studies they also were appointed as apprentices with the orchestra,as part of their training, gaining valuable playing experience with a professional orchestra (normally playing 2 weeks a month, performing at least one work from the subscription program, an opera, school concert etc.)

I introduced them to the marvelous book, “The Art of French Horn Playing” by Philip Farkas and other great books. I made them go to hear all our concerts, and also visit the annual Festival de Musica de Canarias (Canary Islands Music Festival, which is held each year in January and February. There they could enjoy the greatest orchestras such as the Berlin/Munich Phiharmonic orchestras, The Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, WDR Sinfonieorchester, RSO Frankfurt, NDR Sinfonie-Orchester, the New York Philharmonic, Cincinatti Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Montreal Symphony, Vienna Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, etc. etc.

Masterclasses were organized when great hornists came to the island, including Radovan Vlatkovic, Vicente Zarzo, Rodolfo Epelde, Ab Koster, Michael Thompson, Javier Bonet, and others. It is extremely important, I think, to hear different orchestras/players and recordings, helping to shape one’s concept of sound and style. This never has been easier than it is nowadays with the help of YouTube and Spotify.

Afterwards, I also taught for years at the Conservatorio Superior de Musica de Canarias in Las Palmas, where former students Abel Perez (Norske Oper in Oslo) and Alicia Sanchez (Stuttgarter Philharmoniker) were a joy to coach.

In the end, my opinion has been always been the same: having talent is not enough. Talent, combined with discipline and hard/continuous work is the only way to be successful.

Jose Zarzo studied in The Hague with Vicente Zarzo and Martin van de Merwe. He was a member of the Spanish National Youth Orchestra and the European Community Youth Orchestra. In 1989, he became principal horn with the Orquesta Filarmonica de Gran Canaria, with whom he has toured and recorded extensively. He teaches at the Orchestra Academy and the Conservatorio Superior de Musica de Canarias in Las Palmas. His solo recordings appear on the Crystal and Summit record labels.

By Kerry Turner

My first encounter with a triple horn was as a college freshman. I had enrolled at Baylor University to study with Bill Robinson. At the time, all I could afford was a Selmer double. Prof. Robinson had just acquired 2 Paxman triples, I’m not sure how, and offered to let me play one of them. It was an instant love affair. Mind you, it wasn’t about playing high notes. I’ve always been blessed with a decent high range. What was it about the horn that made so much sense to me? I think the best way to understand it is to look at what I did not like about the double horn. You don’t really know what is limiting about a double until you learn to play a triple.

Recently, I had the very same experience. I played a Paxman triple during all of my years with the American Horn Quartet. When I began playing with that venerable ensemble, I was playing an Alex 103. The members of the AHQ strongly recommended that I switch to a triple horn. They claimed that, given the sort of repertoire and length of concerts we would be performing, I would soon see the advantages of such an instrument.

Last year, shortly after the AHQ retired, I began to long for a double horn again. the double felt so light in my hands. I felt the vibrations coming off the instrument better. It was sort of like driving a sports car after years behind the wheel of a Winnebago.

However, after a while, the limitations of the double horn began to make themselves known. After six days of 6-hour recording sessions in the orchestra, on the last day, I was faced with extremely delicate, soft and stopped passages on a piece. It was tough going for me. One of my colleagues, who was playing a triple, showed me how much easier that particular passage would be using the high F side. I tried it, and the notes popped right out.

by Tom Varner

Pensamientos informales y una encuesta: ¿Cómo mantenemos nuestra embocadura y nuestro bienestar intacto cuando somos cornistas y profesores a tiempo completo,  y  además tenemos otros compromisos (esposo/a, hijos,  padres ancianos)?

Queridos amigos de la IHS,

Cuando  Mike Harcrow y Kristina Mascher- Turner me pidieron que contribuyera con algo para el boletín electrónico de Agosto 2017, explorando los temas me vino a la mente el acto de malabarismo entre la enseñanza, la ejecución y la vida, y decidí abordarlo. Yo he sido toda mi vida adulta un cornista independiente "músico improvisador/ jazzista/multifacético"  y director de banda pero solo he sido profesor a tiempo completo desde hace 5 años (casi ya 6 años y 8 si se cuenta el tiempo como profesor adjunto). Francamente,  éstos 5 años han sido un reto totalmente nuevo,  en función de mantener el entrenamiento diario con mi instrumento mientras enseño a tiempo completo y con el hecho de tener una familia (ahora con dos adolescentes muy activos).  No es que me queje, estoy muy agradecido de tener mi trabajo, amo a mis estudiantes y a mis colegas docentes, pero wow! el acto de balancear todo esto, no es fácil. (Los cornistas que han sido profesores por 10, 20, 30 años, ¡siéntanse libres de reírse de mí!).

The rest of this article is available only to logged in members of the IHS. If you are already a member, log in above; if not, join now!

Tom Varner es profesor asociado de Interpretación en Jazz en la Universidad de Cornish de las Artes de Seattle. Por favor echa un vistazo a su reciente cd “Nine Surprises” en iTunes, Amazon y CD Baby.

Kristina Mascher-Turner: As I write these questions, I've got your "Heart's Journey" album playing and keep getting distracted by your lush, emotionally generous playing! Can you tell us how this album came to be? What inspired you to give birth to it?

Jerry Peel: I believed early in my career that the horn had the musical equivalency of the old Sarah Lee commercial “Nobody doesn’t love Sarah Lee.” I believed that “nobody wouldn’t love the horn” - they just needed to be introduced! It became a personal quest for me to make that introduction. I also believed that the horn had the characteristics to be a much more commercially viable solo instrument. While I was horn professor at the University of Miami in the 70’s (a great place to think non-traditionally!), I began that quest by asking a few composer/arranger/horn playing students and composer colleagues if they would be willing to write some “new” music for solo horn. Out of those collaborations came my first record, “A Horn of a Different Color.” When I moved to New York in the early 80’s I continued to plead with and cajole colleagues whose work I admired to write for me. At that point, I wanted solo horn, string quartet, and rhythm section to be the base ensemble and wanted music that could be played live. Many wonderful friends and colleagues responded in such a positive way that soon I had a library of arrangements of every style imaginable. And, yes, I did perform an evening of some of that music with some notables in the band, an evening I’m not likely to ever forget! Years later, due to fortuitous circumstances and generous friends, I was able to finance a second solo recording project. I realized then that I just wanted to record music that allowed me to do what I enjoyed the most, singing on the horn! And, “Heart’s Journey” was born. I had plans for two more recording projects. But life intervenes while one makes plans, and a bout with focal dystonia in the early 2000’s forced me to put the horn in the box, one of the most difficult decisions I’ve made. But, one that those with a true passion for the horn can easily understand.

KMT: As a young hornist, how did the strong Texas high school band tradition shape you as a player and teacher?

JP: I’ve often said how fortunate I am to have been born and raised in Kirbyville, Texas, a small town known for its fire department, churches on every corner - and its high school band! The band director, Karl Wadenpfuhl, and his wife Lottie, became my musical parents through all my school years. Luckily for me, Karl was an ex horn player - and even years after not playing, still had a really dark singing sound which he demonstrated sparingly. He was self-conscious about his limited ability at that point, but I loved listening to him. That was the sound in my young ears, only to be replaced with the Hollywood horn sound. In Kirbyville, there was very little exposure to live music, so I was captive to recordings and films to get my early impressions of that sound that both guided and frustrated my attempts to duplicate. Only, years later, did I learn that that massive horn sound on the films I loved was probably the result of 8 to 16 players! I say I was frustrated because I was never able to get that same quality of sound from my horn that was in my ears.