This listing contains Music Festival announcements for 2026; however, the postings were compiled in mid-November 2025 and will inevitably include omissions. While the International Horn Society is worldwide, the limitations of my experience have confined the scope of this listing to the United States. Inclusion does not constitute endorsement by the International Horn Society.

Aspen Music Festival

• Dates: July 1, 2026 to August 23, 2026
• Notes on Applicants: Average age of their student body is 25, and most students are enrolled in pre-college, conservatory, or graduate-level music studies. Brass are rarely accepted for their half sessions.
• Application Deadline: January 5, 2026
• Location: Aspen, Colorado
• Website Link: https://www.aspenmusicfestival.com/students-welcome/admissions/programs-of-study/

Boston Tanglewood Institute French Horn Workshop

• Dates: June 21, 2026 to July 4, 2026
• Notes on Applicants: Ages 14 to 20 in the program; only high schoolers are eligible for the orchestra.
• Application Deadline: January 21, 2026
• Location: Lenox, Massachusetts
• Website Link: https://www.bu.edu/cfa/tanglewood/program/french-horn-workshop/

Brevard College Orchestral Institute

• Dates: June 20, 2026 to August 2, 2026
• Notes on Applicants: The college division is for students ages 18 through 29 who have completed at least one year as a full-time college student. In addition to current undergraduates, many students in the program have graduated or are presently enrolled for graduate study.
• Application Deadline: February 15, 2026
• Location: Brevard, North Carolina
• Website Link: https://www.brevardmusic.org/institute/college/orchestral/

Chautauqua Institution

• Dates: June 26, 2026 to August 11, 2026
• Notes on Applicants: Our students are typically 18 to 28 and enrolled in or recently graduated from undergraduate or graduate studies.
• Application Deadline: February 1, 2026
• Location: Chautauqua, New York
• Website Link: https://www.chq.org/festival-schools/school-of-music/instrumental-program/

Colorado College Summer Music Festival

• Dates: June 6, 2026 to June 26, 2026
• Notes on Applicants: Advanced, pre-professional musicians. Applicants will range in age from 18 years old to students at the university, master’s, and doctoral levels. While most accepted students are pursuing a degree, you do not have to be currently enrolled at a school to apply.
• Application Deadline: February 15, 2026
• Location: Colorado Springs, Colorado
• Website Link: https://www.coloradocollege.edu/other/summermusicfestival/fellows/apply.html

Cormont Horn Camp (Previously known as Kendall Betts Horn Camp)

• Dates: June 13, 2026 to June 20, 2026 and June 21, 2026 to June 28, 2026. May attend one week or both weeks
• Notes on Applicants: The camp serves each participant where they are in their horn journey. High school, College, Professional, Amateur, or Returning to Horn.
• Application Deadline: First-come, first-served basis to maintain participant-to-faculty ratio of 4:1
• Location: Cardigan Mountain School, New Hampshire
• Website Link: https://horncamp.org/

Festival Napa Valley Blackburn Music Academy

• Dates: June 29, 2026 to July 19, 2026
• Notes on Applicants: The Program is open to all instrumentalists 18 years and older.
• Application Deadline: Not Yet Available as of 11/15/2025
• Location: Napa Valley, California
• Website Link: https://festivalnapavalley.org/education/academy/

Foosa Festival

• Dates: June 13, 2026 to June 29, 2026
• Notes on Applicants: Advanced musicians of graduate school, college, and high school age.
• Application Deadline: Not Yet Available as of November 15, 2025
• Location: Fresno, California
• Website Link: https://www.foosamusic.org/about-foosa

Lake George Music Festival

• Dates: May 31, 2026 to June 11, 2026
• Notes on Applicants: Welcome residency applications from artists of all nationalities, backgrounds, and identities, ages 18 and up.
• Application Deadline: January 15, 2026
• Location: Lake George, New York
• Website Link: https://app.getacceptd.com/nationalmusic

National Music Festival

• Dates: May 31, 2026 to June 13, 2026
• Notes on Applicants: All applicants must be at least 18 years of age by June 1, 2025. There is no upper age limit. The average age is 22, though some are younger and older.
• Application Deadline: February 10, 2026
• Location: Chestertown, Maryland
• Website Link: https://nationalmusic.us/

National Repertory Orchestra Summer Music Festival

• Dates: June 20, 2026 to August 8, 2026
• Notes on Applicants: Applicants must be between 18 and 29 years of age and will have completed at least one year of college, university, or conservatory by June 16, 2026.
• Application Deadline: January 25, 2026
• Location: Breckenridge, Colorado
• Website Link: https://www.nromusic.org/how-to-apply/

Round Top Music Festival

• Dates: June 1, 2026 to July 11, 2026
• Notes on Applicants: Born before December 31, 2008.
• Application Deadline: February 2, 2026
• Location: Round Top, Texas
• Website Link: https://festivalhill.org/#/summerinstitute

Sarasota Music Festival

• Dates: May 31, 2026 to June 14, 2026
• Notes on Applicants: Musicians from top music programs at colleges and conservatories are invited to audition and participate.
• Application Deadline: February 15, 2026
• Location: Sarasota, Florida
• Website Link: https://www.sarasotaorchestra.org/festival

Sewanee Summer Music Festival

• Dates: June 14, 2026 to July 12, 2026
• Notes on Applicants: Includes pre-college and college students.
• Application Deadline: February 15, 2026
• Location: Sewanee, Tennessee
• Website Link: https://ssmf.sewanee.edu/experience/instrumental-performance-program/

Spoleto Festival USA

• Dates: May 22, 2026 to June 7, 2026
• Notes on Applicants: An exceptionally talented group of performers is selected to perform in the ensemble.
• Application Deadline: January 1, 2026
• Location: Charleston, South Carolina
• Website Link: https://spoletousa.org/get-involved/auditions/

by Jason Ayoub, United States Navy Band

I have a confession to make: I really like to play loud…deafeningly loud! I’ve liked to blast since I started playing the horn. I grew up listening to the Chicago, Berlin, and the Vienna symphony brass sections in addition to film scores that highlighted the powerful sound of the horn. My models were wonderful, but I focused only on one aspect of what they could do. As soon as I could, I began blaring in every register and playing as many ear-splitting excerpts as possible. My first professional job was in a brass quintet, and my goal was to never let the horn’s sound be covered. Soon after, I won the United States Navy Band horn audition, and we prided ourselves on being the loudest military band in Washington D.C. For nearly 16 years I sat Principal and made sure I was always heard over the rest of the section (and sometimes over the entire band). As you might have guessed, all those years of loud playing finally caught up to me as I started to age. I began to get an occasional sting in the upper lip, but I reassured myself it wasn’t anything significant, and I would ease up a little in the next show. Unfortunately, I allowed myself this habit of playing too much, feeling pain, backing off, then starting the process again. I knew something had to change last summer when the pain didn’t subside, my endurance diminished, and I couldn’t keep up. I made the most difficult decision of my life and gave up playing in the band and moved into the IT office. Because the horn was a huge part of my life, I wouldn’t let this setback end my career. I rested a lot, received help, and started implementing new warm-up techniques in my everyday playing. Nearly a year and half later, I now play with more ease, and I am almost to the level I was before I started to notice problems. The reflection process throughout my healing was just as important as the rest and new warm-up routines. Everything that happened was avoidable, especially my perspectives on how great horn playing should sound. I would like to share those with you.

Listening to orchestra and movie recordings where the horns had a distinct characteristic encouraged me to emulate what I heard. No matter what horn I played—from an L-series Conn 8D to a large bore Lawson and a Schmid double—I wanted to create a powerful blend of those big Hollywood and European sounds. I spent countless hours working to create my ideal color, particularly in the louder dynamics. You’re probably wondering why that’s a problem: aren’t we supposed to work on those aspects of our playing? We are, but I was never satisfied with the sound I made while trying to achieve my concept. I felt I had to prove that I could bury the horn section, the brass section, and the band. What started as a desire to produce a powerful sound turned into a source of pride. It was this pride that kept me from backing down…and that even created an unbalanced ensemble.

Such a mentality can produce problems within a section. Instead of working together for uniform tone and dynamics, colleagues may end up doing just the opposite. Because section members want to match the principal's dynamics, they play so loudly that a characteristic sound and good pitch are sacrificed, and overdone dynamics produce an imbalance that loses blend. Injury, resentfulness, and unmusical sections are a negative result of these approaches. In the end, players don’t work well together, and the result is individual sounds rather than a united section.

My desire for the Navy Band section to sound larger than life was also hindered by another aspect peculiar to military bands.  

Most orchestras have the luxury of performing in the same venue for the majority of their performance season. Those players learn how to play in their hall and produce the section sound they desire in that space. In the Navy Band, we perform in a different venue for almost every concert. On national tours, we encounter a variety of acoustics, from concert halls to high school gymnasiums. In most concert halls you can hear yourself, your section, and the rest of the ensemble. Unfortunately, gymnasium performances create situations where it is incredibly difficult to hear your section, the ensemble, and sometimes even yourself. Not knowing whether we are projecting or not creates the desire to play louder and louder. I would often feel like it was my job to make sure that the horns were heard. Instead of trusting my section mates to carry the load with me, I would play even louder to compensate for my inability to hear my colleagues. My friend Jose Sibaja used to say that you can’t save the band by playing louder to keep the ensemble together; it always causes more problems than it fixes. Yet I was trying to save the section instead of trusting them as the fine professionals they are. This becomes a vicious cycle which can lead to injury and section members inadvertently working against each other.  

During my recovery, my mindset has changed. Playing with a full, loud sound will always be part of my playing, but I choose my moments. Many years ago, my teacher, Dr. William Scharnberg, had a great comment concerning dynamics that always stuck with me. He said that playing loud is like the peak of a mountain and soft is like the valley below. Your peak only looks impressive if there is also a deep valley. If mezzo forte to fff is all the same, then you are really existing on a dynamic plateau without any peak. Every player and ensemble needs to have the ability to perform all the dynamics and not just soft and loud. Loud playing is only as impressive as the soft dynamics which help them to stand out. For too many years, I was caught on a dynamic plateau, and I needed to experience greater depth.  

My advice for all my students and future horn players would be to focus on creating a quality sound that will project in any performing space and always to work for a controlled and blended dynamic range. Horn players should not only be the muscle in the ensemble but also have the versatility to work as a woodwind player who creates lyrical melodies with delicate precision. Always treat the quiet sounds with as much care as you do the great climactic parts of a work.

Chamber Music Corner—John Harbison’s Twilight Music

by Layne Anspach

This month’s Chamber Music Corner focuses on John Harbison’s Twilight Music for horn, violin, and piano (1985). John Harbison (b. 1938) is an American composer, conductor, and academic. He is an Institute Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and his output amounts to nearly 300 works, including operas, symphonies, a ballet, and chamber music. Harbison has served in residencies with the Pittsburgh Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic in addition to several festivals. Among many awards, he has received a MacArthur Fellowship and a Pulitzer Prize. Harbison has also served as the President of the Copland Fund.

Twilight Music for horn, violin, and piano (1985) was commissioned by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, which hosted the premiere on March 22, 1985. The piece is a single movement work divided into four distinct sections. The first section, Con moto, flessibile, begins with violin and horn serving as counterbalances to each other. Harbison writes in his program notes, “The horn and the violin have little in common. Any merging must be tromp-l’ Oreille and they share material mainly to show how differently they project it.” As the dialogue progresses, the piano enters as support to the narrative. A momentary peak in the phrase leads to the first iteration which horn and violin perform together. The two part when the horn abandons the violin only to re-enter with a separate melody. The section ends with piano alone but moves directly into the second section, Presto, in which most of the technical skills needed to perform the work, with its fast tempo and quick darting figures, is required. The horn and violin eventually come together again, made all the more striking by disparate passages leading to the merger. The section begins to break down when the texture becomes more sparse, with each performer playing on their own.

Antiphon, the third section is, as Harbison describes, “the crux—the origin of the piece’s intervallic character.” The violin and horn play rhythmically together for much of the section—in contrast to the two prior sections. The character shifts when the violin initiates a long chromatic line which separates the two until a sweeping jump reunites them. A descent into the horn’s low register and sparse violin and piano writing signals the end of the section with a grand pause preceding the finale, Adagio, cantabile. Here, both violin and horn again play separately with piano underpinning long passages. The two instruments do not play melodic content together for the entire section (making the contrast in the third section more meaningful). Upper range in the violin and continued piano support brings the work to a calm finish.

The reference recording comes from a performance at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Chamber Music Masters series from February 18, 2010. The hornist is Robert Ward.

by Katy Carnaggio

The curtain rod gave out first. That felt right. Not symbolic, not poetic. Just one more thing failing to hold.

You hadn’t touched your music in four days. The recital loomed on the calendar, circled in red, like you meant it. And then the curtain gave out. And that’s what you chose to fix.

Drywall dust in your hair. A drill buzzing like a bee in your hands. And for the first time in days, you don’t feel like running. You feel sharp. Focused. You even learn how to locate support points using a stud finder and say, “Well, that’s not ideal,” with dignity.

And you nail it so quickly (or drilled it, really) that it surprises you, as if your brain was thrilled by the messy, shifting middle where your thoughts leap and your body learns and your fear doesn’t leave but you keep going…like it sees your originality, your resilience, your wild intelligence that re-routes on instinct. And it doesn’t want to miss a thing. So it stays.

When your brain detects the mismatch between what it expected and what happened, and when it sees the curtains crash down, too, it releases the precise amount of chemicals to boost alertness and help you focus. It focuses your attention and executive-control networks to figure out what went wrong and how to adjust.

And though it prefers a pattern—a reason, proof—it sees the tension in your shoulders, the ongoing mismatch in your expectation, and swaps perfection for direction. It says, “It’s okay. We’ll learn on the way.” It lowers the threshold for learning, so you can adapt faster, with less feedback.

When the situation stays unstable, but within reach, your brain stores what you learn in a flexible, generalized form so you can use it for different contexts later. Not just for curtains.

You learn faster and deeper, because when the ceiling falls down, your brain doesn’t freeze. It doesn’t flinch. It steps forward. It says, “I see you. Even now. Especially now.”

When mismatched expectations come with a horn, that step forward can sometimes feel like a threat. The stakes feel higher. It’s your music, after all. You’re alert, but your hands won’t stop shaking. You’re focused, but only on your mistakes. You’re adapting, but nothing feels stable enough to stand on. And sometimes, that very volatility, the one that primes your deepest learning, is the same thing that makes you set the horn down. Just for a day. Then a weekend. Then a week…until it’s been so long you forget how your own breath feels. Until you whisper, without meaning to, “I don’t know if I’m a musician anymore.”

Offered, like a secret, afraid that it won’t be held, something warm meets you instead. Steady. Familiar. A whisper you feel more than hear: “Hey. Still here. Not scared of the mess.”

Your brain sees you. Even now. Especially now. It doesn’t flinch when your hands shake. It doesn’t leave when your sound does. However long it takes, however far you wander, the moment you reach back, it reaches with you. You’re still learning, because when you doubt the most is when your brain sees the most. Not the effort. Not the habit. Not even the resilience. It sees your wanting.

You may believe your worth is in the practice room. But your brain has never located your value there. Not once. It watches the way you move toward music again and again, even when you can’t touch it. Your raw desire to belong activates every system it has.

You don’t have to prove you’re a musician. You’re the one it builds the music around…the phrases you shape from a falling leaf, the timing you map from subway doors, or the ache you channel from betrayal.

There’s even a name for it: Transfer of Knowledge. It’s when a skill, a truth, or knowledge learned in one context changes how you perform in another. It asks you to notice the different selves you already are and draw connections between them, so what you learn in one part of life can advance the others.

Your brain sees it all in one moment: the student, the musician, the person, the teacher, the bruised, the burning, the still-reaching. And it never recovers. (In the best way).

Transfer isn’t just what your brain does for you. It’s what you do with your whole life when you decide to let it count. You learn how to link things. You learn how to trust the links. You learn that finding support points for your curtain rods might work for your tricky phrases, too. And in that trust? You become unstoppable. The practice was never the proof. The love was. And it never left. So even now, especially now. You’re still here.

Next up, Part 3: The Mechanism of Connection (or “Transfer Is Hot and You’re Not Apologizing”)