Gail Williams Interview
No newsletter devoted to IHS48 would be complete without hearing from Ithaca College’s most famous horn graduate, Gail Williams. In a career that has included the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Summit Brass, the World Orchestra for Peace, and professorship at Northwestern University, to name just a few highlights, she has shared her formidable musical expertise as a performer and clinician all over the world. In this interview, she treats us to reminiscences from her time as a student at Ithaca College, tells us what we have to look forward to in the natural beauty of Ithaca’s surroundings, and gives excellent advice on many aspects of a successful career and balanced lifestyle. Enjoy! -KMT
Kristina Mascher-Turner: How did you come to choose the horn in the first place?
Gail Williams: My mom suggested I try the horn since I was left-handed. She had a rule that we (my two brothers and I) all play different instruments…so I got the horn.
KMT: Can you tell us about your teacher at Ithaca College, Jack Covert? What was it like studying with him?
GW: Mr. Covert was the most important person in my musical upbringing. He taught me the technique of the horn and the history of our instrument, exposed me to great horn players and great repertoire. But most importantly, he structured my horn playing by building a strong base. I had never had a horn lesson till my first lesson with Mr. Covert!
KMT: Ithaca, New York, is situated in a place of natural beauty, and you have a love of the great outdoors. Did this love begin while studying at Ithaca College, or had it always been a part of you?
GW: I have always loved the outdoors. Growing up on a beautiful Holstein farm in western New York State, Ithaca was a BIG city for me!
KMT: Do you have some special memories of your student days at IC that you can share with our readers?
GW: Ithaca is where I really fell in love with music. I had never really heard an orchestra or chamber music before then. On the first recital Mr. Covert gave during my freshman year, the program was the three B’s: Berkeley, Banks, and Brahms! I do also have to tell you that because I was new to “music life,” I balanced my life in Ithaca by spending time with my friends from my Holstein upbringing at the Cornell campus and their football games!
KMT: While you were a student at IC, you already started successfully taking auditions. How did you prepare?
GW: I didn’t really study any excerpts while I was at IC. I had to learn music and horn first! Too many students never learn the correct technique before beginning to play excerpts. I am so grateful to Mr. Covert that I played many etudes to form my background, my long base, so that I could pull from that base for orchestral playing.
Welcome from Marcus Bonna
It is with great satisfaction that we announce the 2nd publication of IHS E- Newsletter this year.
Coming soon, the 48th International Horn Symposium will be held in the beautiful city of Ithaca (June 13-18 ) in the State of New York . I'll be there eager to meet as many horn players as possible, and I am sure it will be an event full of new things and unforgettable performances.
I highlight in this issue the interview with the celebrated internationally renowned horn player, Gail Williams, graduate of Ithaca College, a pedagogical article from Peter Luff and a report with Dan Vidican of Lukas Horns.
I hope you do not miss your chance to register for the Ithaca Symposium and come enjoy the greatest Meeting of horn players of the year 2016 !!!
Until then,
Marcus Bonna
Advisory Council Member
International Horn Society
Some Important Aspects of Horn Playing
by Will Sanders
Over thirty years of teaching horn I have developed a unique philosophy and technical routine for playing and practicing horn. The exercises that I have created or use have been well thought-out and each exercise is designed to train and build varied aspects of horn playing in the most productive way possible. The main and most important element to successfully learning and mastering the horn is free flowing air. One must achieve a feeling of releasing the air instead of holding, pressing or squeezing the air. I try to avoid the word “support”, because it tends to imply that the air rubs, is held or is tense.
The horn methods of Farkas and Jacobs are good philosophies; however, good teaching is not something that can really be written down because there are almost as many different ways of playing the horn as there are hornplayers. People are so different and therefore the method of teaching must change from person to person.
Horn technique is built from the ground upwards in every aspect starting with posture and breathing. How the head is held in relation to the body can affect embouchure muscles and therefore it is very important that one stands in the most balanced, comfortable and relaxed way to allow the right muscles to develop. Good posture also ensures and helps build a strong and deep breathing technique. Alexander and Qi Gong techniques are very good for developing good posture and I have studied both of these myself for years. Once good airflow is achieved, with the diaphragm swinging freely, air should be concentrated on the lips to ensure that they swing freely. When the body is relaxed and in balance, one can start working on holding the horn correctly and placing it on the lips with the correct angle, low, relaxed shoulders and lip proportions. This has a lot to do with the anatomy of the person and is for every person different.
Tom Greer — Moosewood
Meet Your Makers
The names “Tom Greer” and “Moosewood” are sometimes linked together, sometimes not! Moosewood Mouthpieces have been in circulation since 1990, when Tom and his wife Susie McCrea returned to the United States from orchestral positions overseas.
The first mouthpieces crafted by Tom were made while he was with the San Diego Symphony. Trial and error resulted in MANY mouthpiece “attempts” being scrapped. One of those NOT tossed, a freehand Dell’Osa-pattern #3 bore, remained in Jerry Folsom’s Kruspe for the rest of his career. The Moosewood JF3 was the first professionally-dedicated mouthpiece Tom created. Factors considered were Jerry’s tone color, his physical attributes and that it was to complement a Kruspe. Jerry’s intense and very musical style made this horn/mouthpiece pairing a considerable success.
As there were no “mouthpiece-crafting academies” it was vital to learn the elements of machining. Tom set to the task on a Navy surplus Atlas/Craftsman lathe. Through the famous “Atlas Craftsman Manual of Lathe Operation” and a subscription to “The Home Shop Machinist” he discovered the meaning of “autodidact”. Tooling for mouthpiece production is not available through machine supply houses. These pieces, tapered reamers, shaped cutters and cup contour tools, have to be custom-made. Tom taught himself how to machine steel tools, as in the 1800s, hardening them for use. He set up a hibachi with a forced-air “bellows” (hair dryer), bringing the metal up to correct temperature, hardening them through oil or water quenching. These same tools, some cut to reproduce older Geyer and Chambers contours, are still in daily use after 25 years. The backbore tools were made in the same way, and are still sharp and hard. Template patterns for more than 300 personal rim contours were collected over time; these patterns can enable hand reproduction, though it takes a lot of care.
Interview of the Month: Rose French
Access to music and musical training can change lives, especially for inner-city youth. In this fascinating interview, Phoenix-based professional horn player, teacher, book author, and IHS exhibits coordinator Dr. Rose French shares her experiences at Rosie's House. Want to know what that is? Read on and let yourself be inspired! -KMT
Kristina Mascher-Turner: What was the impulse behind your interest in helping out underprivileged children in the first place?
Rose French: I was very fortunate to learn about Rosie’s House just after I had moved to Phoenix, Arizona in 2003. At first it was not as apparent to me why Rosie’s House is such an important place, but as I started to teach there, it reminded me of what a profound impact music and my music teachers had on my childhood. The truth is that I did not grow up any different from my students: I went to Head Start, a government program that provides comprehensive early education, health, nutrition, and family services to poverty-level children and their families. When it came time to pick an instrument in school, my parents could not afford to rent an instrument, which is how I ended up starting with the horn, since the school provided them. As a senior in high school, I finally purchased my own horn after auditioning at Duquesne University, sending a check every week for $50 to Bill Caballero from my job working at Sears! Fortunately, later in the year won a scholarship from my local symphony that helped me pay for the rest of the instrument.
From growing up in a small town in central Pennsylvania, I feel really fortunate to have the life and the experiences that I have had already, however it’s the education that makes all the difference. It’s important for me to show my students that it they can use the life skills that they learn from playing the horn to apply to their lives and to be whatever they want.
KMT: How did the founding of Rosie's House come about? Can you tell us a bit about the mission and scope of the activities?
RF: Rosie’s House is committed to playing a pivotal role in a child’s future and strengthening our community. Founded in 1996 by Rosie Schurz, a German immigrant, the Academy was established in a small home in an impoverished neighborhood in Central Phoenix, Arizona. Rosie’s goal was to create a save haven for youth to express their creativity and pursue their dreams.
Top Ten Reasons to Attend the Ithaca Symposium
Greetings from Ithaca College! Winter has finally arrived, though oddly enough, the recent snowpocalypse that inundated NY City, Washington, D.C., and much of the U.S. northeast had virtually no impact on us here. Preparations for the 48th International Horn Symposium (13-18 June 2016) are ramping up and there will be a steady stream of updates and information coming in the weeks and months ahead. Meanwhile, here’s an overview of the Top 10 Reasons to attend IHS 2016 @ Ithaca College:
1. Performances by this year’s Featured Artists! We’ve got a great line-up of Featured Artists who will be performing old favorites along with many newly commissioned works. David Amram, Pip Eastop, Nobuaki Fukukawa, Frank Lloyd, Philip Myers, Jeff Nelsen, Leslie Norton, Bruno Schneider, Arkady Shilkloper, Jeffrey Stockham, William VerMeulen and Gail Williams. Find links to each of them here: http://www.ithaca.edu/music/ihs2016/artists/
2 & 3. Performances and Lectures from Supporting Artists promise to be superb this year, too. At this writing, the committee is still working to coordinate and schedule events presented by a wide range of players, professors, historians and enthusiasts. It looks like there’ll be somewhere between 50-75 presentations from this category.
Lukas Horns - Dan Vidican
This month, our featured craftsman for “Meet Your Makers”, is Dan Vidican, the maker of Lukas Horns. His handiwork can recently be heard on the soundtrack to “Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens”, played by principal horn, Andrew Bain. Enjoy a look into the development and workings of an artisan horn builder!
I'm honored and very happy to have the opportunity to share my story here.
I grew up in Romania, more precisely in Cluj, one of the biggest cities in Transylvania. My aunt, who was a music teacher and played violin at the time, had a huge influence in my life. There is a certain musical tradition in my family and that certainly contributed to the decision to start playing an instrument. I started violin in the first grade when I was 6 years old, but that didn't go very well, so by the time I was 11 years old I wanted to switch to, of course, the trumpet, and somehow I got stuck with horn! After graduating from high school, and while attending the Gh. Dima Academy of Music, I won my first professional job with the Transylvania State Philharmonic, where I worked for 6 years.
I’ve always had a certain affinity for the Chicago sound, even back in Romania. I remember we had a small listening booth in high school and unfortunately the horn LP selection was fairly limited to maybe 3 recordings or so, Dennis Brain Mozart s concertos, Hermann Baumann, and Schumann's “Konzertstuck” with Dale Clevenger and the famous Chicago Symphony Orchestra. I remember listening to that LP for hours at the time over a period of 6-8 months, and hoping that one day I would get to sit in a hall and hear the orchestra play live. Little did I know that fate would put me directly in the heart of that amazing town in just a few short years. Upon arrival, in 1998, I was lucky enough to study with Jon Boen, Principal Horn of Lyric Opera of Chicago, at DePaul University, and then win an audition and become a member of Civic Orchestra of Chicago and play on the very same stage where Chicago Symphony plays. A dream come true!
During my years in Chicago I was lucky enough to get work as a freelancer, and worked with a plethora of orchestras, including the Illinois Symphony Orchestra, Green Bay Symphony and substituting with orchestras like the Nashville Symphony and Grant Park Symphony among others. In 2006 I started performing as Assistant Horn with Memphis Symphony where I am currently residing and playing 4th horn.
