IHS 55—introducing . . . Montréal!
Montréal Olympic Stadium, photo copyright © Yves Tremblay
Montréal: a city to discover!
Next summer, IHS 55 will offer hundreds of workshops, recitals, concerts, and more! But we also hope that during your stay you will find the time to experience some of Montréal’s attractions. Here is a little preview of what you can expect from the city.
First, Montréal is home to many, many, MANY parks, from city squares to large nature parks. Mount-Royal, a must see during your stay, offers 200 hectares of green space in the middle of the city, and it is conveniently located right next to Université de Montréal where the symposium will be held! And if you want more greenery, you can visit the Lafontaine of Maisonneuve parks which provide great spots for an outdoor escape without leaving the city.
Did you know Montréal is home to the tallest inclined tower in the world? The Olympic Stadium with its iconic tower was designed by French architect Roger Taillibert. It was built for the 1976 Summer Olympics, and with its 65,000 seats, it has since then welcomed hundreds of events such as baseball and football games, concerts by U2, Madonna, and many more. It is easily accessible by public transportation, and you can also visit the Space for Life Museums: the Botanical Garden, the Biodome, the Insectarium, and the Planetarium.
And finally, we could not pass on the famous Montréal-style bagel. It is an absolute must-try during your visit! It is different from the New York-style bagel. It is thinner, sweeter, and denser, and it is boiled in honey-sweetened water before being baked in a wood-fired oven. There are many different spots where you can find Montréal-style bagels—some of them have been around for decades. Make sure to let us know what you think of Montréal bagels next summer!
We hope this gives you a taste of what the city has to offer. We are looking forward to seeing you next summer!
- The IHS 55 team
To register for IHS 55, visit www.ihs55.org. Early bird discounts are available until April 1st!
Fearless Performance—Developing Awareness
by Katy Webb
What do we REALLY fear when we say we’re afraid of missing a note or messing up on stage? We’ve heard all sorts of answers to this question, from “I don’t want to embarrass myself” to “If I do well, I could be Jen Montone’s next third hornist!” to “I did not spend all that money and eat all that ramen to fly across the country to play like this.”
Dig a little deeper and imagine a time when you handled yourself well. You were able to share a GREAT version of yourself with others, yet you still had critics in the audience: you still weren’t the right fit for that job, or you were still out a few hundred bucks from your travel. Ramen aversion aside, was it truly the results that you feared? Or were you able to walk away from the experience with some amount of fulfillment?
Katy, here. I may not have Jeff’s magical pig-farming background, but I do have a formal background in skill acquisition, which, although less muddy, I like to think is just as magical. My instinct is that it’s not truly the mistake or result we’re fearing. We fear whether we’ll be able to handle ourselves well under pressure. In other words, we fear our ability to self-regulate while preparing for and executing a performance.
Self-regulation is our ability to covertly monitor ourselves and adjust our internal states, emotions, and understanding, then overtly choose, execute, and adjust our performance strategies to move toward our goals, all while observing and adapting to environmental and social conditions.
It sounds like a lot to juggle. Then add in that triplet section from the first movement of Gliere’s horn concerto, and . . . brain broken! Dr. Russell Barkely, clinical psychologist, to the rescue! He has brilliantly distinguished the processes which underlie our ability for self-regulation into seven cognitive functions. I’ve broken down insights from his research into tiny habits you can start practicing to strengthen your ability to self-regulate during a performance. This will get you closer to sharing the best version of yourself anytime, anywhere. Let’s dive in!
1. The Mind’s Brakes—Inhibition: Our ability to pause before reacting to events, impulses, or emotions so that we can consider options and choose freely among them, rather than be pushed and pulled by the circumstances around us.
- Pause to evaluate your stage. Is everything set comfortably? Can you see your music? (Can the audience see you?)
- You’re about to play your first notes…wait! What is most useful for you to think about right now?
- Notice when you’re hyper-concerned about potential anxiety symptoms, then pause: choose a next thought that brings you more deeply into the music.
2. The Mind’s Mirror—Self-awareness: Our ability to direct our attention, not only outward toward our surroundings but inward toward ourselves. We can notice how we’re coming across to those around us and what predictable outcomes might occur from our actions.
- Video record your solo performance entrances and exits to see the first and last impressions you make on your audience.
- Regularly record and listen back to your practice sessions.
- Post “blend check” sticky notes in your ensemble music to remind yourself to assess how you’re blending with your colleagues.
3. The Mind’s Eye—Non-verbal Working Memory: Our capacity to think in senses beyond words. We can imagine or recall sounds and imitate others’ behaviors, taking the best of what they have learned to do while avoiding their mistakes.
- Use storytelling throughout your performance by imagining pictures, sounds, tastes, touches, and scents and imitating those sensations with your sound.
- Listen to a favorite recording and imagine with all of your senses what it would be like for you to make those sounds.
- Build self-reflection into your performance training. Use hindsight—truly looking backward—to learn from what worked and what didn’t.
4. The Mind’s Voice—Verbal Working Memory: The ability to talk to ourselves in our minds. Internalized speech allows us to guide behavior through self-directed instruction. It helps us stay on course towards our plans and goals, even when things get rough.
- Develop your self-coaching ability by talking to yourself aloud in the practice room so that these intentional thoughts and cheers are louder in your mind on stage.
- Create a narrative about how you will play a piece line by line. Example: “I’m going to sit in my chair and feel deeply grounded by gravity. Then, I’m going to take a full inhalation in time and in the gentle style of the piece. I’m going to hear that D and execute it with a crystal-clear ping.”
- Write succinct coaching statements on your music. Example: “Open hand,” or “Soar,” or….
5. The Mind’s Heart—Emotional Regulation: The process of responding to emotional signals and regulating them in service of our goals and long-term welfare. We can exert freedom over our impulsive reactions to events around us to be more measured, stable, and mature.
- Identify when you are adding personal feelings or narratives to facts.
- Imagine. If you did trust yourself, how would that feel? Produce that feeling in performance and use it to direct your attention to elevating the music.
- Practice your ability to perform an optimal reset: Empty the mind, be in neutral, do the next thing.
6. The Mind’s Fuel Tank—Self-Motivation: By regulating and even creating our emotions with the other processes discussed, we can stick with our plans, follow through on our goals, and resist distractions because we are using our own inner states to drive our behavior.
- Schedule an after-performance reward so you have something to look forward to, no matter what.
- Collect success: Identify one thing you did well after every performance.
- Instead of relying on a limited tank, offload motivation to your environment by scheduling yourself to perform for others often.
7. The Mind’s Playground—Planning and Problem Solving: If we can hold images and words in mind, we eventually develop a means to play around with them. By analyzing something, taking it apart, and recombining its parts, we can find solutions and new possibilities.
- Instead of allowing yourself to be blindsided by mistakes onstage, mentally simulate how you will respond to them, should they arise.
- Visualize your performance and get a sense for where in the timeline you tend to feel most distracted from sharing your music. Then create a plan for what to do in those moments.
- Find a different way to think about sections of your music which you have not yet learned to execute reliably. If you can get it once, your thoughts leading up to and around it are usually what could use adjusting.
Pick the one process you feel least comfortable with and start developing your awareness on how it plays into your performance. For example, my mind’s voice was quite soft! In a performance, I’d feel a lot of fear and doubt without the ability to explicitly navigate my way through. With practice and written reminders, I learned to make that voice stronger and coach myself well through a performance. Maybe your brakes need a little attention or your mind's eye made a little keener. Whatever it is, a little attention will go a long way. Enjoy your explorations!
Cheering you on,
Jeff Nelsen and Katy Webb
Horn on Record
by Ian Zook
Volume 5—Jósef Brejza
Our next Horn on Record entry explores a lesser-known concerto for horn by Swiss composer Othmar Schoeck, recorded by the venerable Polish hornist Józef Brejza.
This album, featuring Othmar Schoeck’s Concerto for Horn and Strings, Op. 65, was released in 1969 by Józef Brejza and the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, and it is the first recording of this concerto. It has since been recorded by artists including Hermann Baumann, Bruno Schneider, and Marie Luise Neunecker. (For an interesting history on the genesis of Schoeck’s concerto and its dedicatee Willi Aebi, check out this history furnished by Herman Baumann.)
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| Józef Brejza |
Józef Brejza was born in 1936 in Kończyce Małe, near Cieszyn, Poland. After early experiences playing the horn in a military brass band, he joined the Silesian Philharmonic as first horn and studied at the Academy of Music in Katowice with Adam Przybyła. Soon after graduating in 1957, he joined the National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra as solo horn, where he performed between 1959-1962.
He was a laureate of many international music competitions, including the Geneva, Moscow, and Prague Spring competitions. Following his success in Geneva, he began playing with the Basel Symphony Orchestra while studying natural horn at the Basel Conservatory. Brejza decided to end his tenure with the orchestras in Poland and relocated permanently to Switzerland. There, he performed for the remainder of his career as a first horn in the Basel Symphony Orchestra. Brejza also premiered many works including Wojciech Kilar’s Sonata for Horn and Piano, Armin Schibler's Prologue, Introduction et Danse, and Musik für Horn und Schlagzeugensemble by Rudolf Kelterborn. He also gave the Polish premiere of Gliere’s Horn Concerto in 1957.
Brejza taught at the Conservatory of Music in Basel from 1965-1996 and then retired from both teaching and performing in 1997.
Now let’s enjoy the music!
The secondary theme in Schoeck’s Concerto is chromatic and searching, a contrast from the pompous and rhythmic spirit of the opening theme. Brejza plays with grand sustain here, pulling through the chromaticism and very subtly tapering the more tonal conclusions:
Later, near the end of the first movement, Brejza’s high range soars with declamatory finality:
The slow movement of the concerto contains sophisticated writing. Here, Brejza’s unflinching dynamics obscure any subtleties in the cantabile phrasing. He also chooses to play con sordino rather than the marked gestopft:
The closing Rondo is charming and effervescent music, harkening to our forested horn calls but with cheeky interjections of chromaticism. Brejza sails through the melody with tidy articulation and an enviable consistency throughout the range:
Schoeck’s Concerto closes with a melancholic melody that suddenly snaps back into the expected jaunty ending. Brejza’s most notable performing characteristics are on display here in his committed melodic sustain, full-throated dynamics, and succinct articulation:
We hope you have enjoyed listening to the Concerto, Op. 65 by Othmar Schoeck and learning more about our horn heritage from Poland. Do you have any feedback or album requests? Visit us at Horn on Record!
United by Music
by Karen Houghton
James Decker was one of the first-call studio hornists in Los Angeles from the 1950s through the 1980s, and he also taught at the University of Southern California. Even though Dennis and I were both studying with Fred Fox at California State University-Long Beach, we were fortunate to be able to take lessons with Mr. Decker as well during part of that time.
I can recall several times when Mr. Decker would call me on the phone asking, “Hey, I have a studio call tomorrow. Do you want to come over and play some duets or excerpts so I can get my chops in shape?” The answer was always, “Yes!” with me dropping whatever I was doing and racing over to his house in Naples, Long Beach. (There may have even been at least one speeding ticket received during those trips!)
The training I received from him on orchestral excerpts was invaluable. To this day, I teach the excerpts the same way he taught them, passing down to my students the pearls of wisdom from a master teacher.
One recollection that is now funny to me is the time he assigned the B-natural horn solo from Brahms’ Symphony no. 2 to be prepared for the following week’s lesson. In Max Pottag’s excerpt book, the part was printed in the original notation (in H), but it also came with a transposed part (in F). Of course, I chose to practice the transposed version and felt very confident and prepared walking into the next lesson. Just as I was about to start, he grabbed a big permanent black marker and proceeded to scribble out the transposed part. My embarrassed reply: “I’m going to need another week.”
An amusing memory for both of us was the time he drove me and another student up to Santa Barbara to attend a concert at The Music Academy of the West where he was the horn instructor. We stopped for lunch on the way and while we were waiting for our food to be served, he handed us a napkin and pen and instructed us to write out the solo from Till Eulenspiegel from memory. There was no Google back then, so we were thankful that our food came quickly!
Mr. Decker was extremely active in the southern California music scene. He was the host of the IHS Symposium at the University of Southern California in 1979. Dennis and I were both invited to help with the preparations and with attending to the needs of the visiting artists, including Alan Civil, Daniel Bourgue, and two very famous Russian horn players, Vitaly Bujanovsky, and Valery Polekh who was then principal horn in the Bolshoi Theater Orchestra.
I was first introduced to Valery Polekh when I attended his masterclass at the USC Symposium. He stood at the front of the classroom next to his interpreter and played for us his recording of Reinhold Glière’s Horn Concerto which the composer had written for him. Hearing the beautiful, lyrical phrases actually moved me to tears. He seemed to be singing through the horn, creating a truly glorious musical experience. At the end of the masterclass, I ran up to meet him and to play for him. Afterward, he invited me to come study with him in Russia the following year! I still tease Dennis that I could have gone to Russia but I married him instead (we were married in August 1979). But, because of the time spent together in Los Angeles, the three of us began a friendship that lasted over the next several years.
Dennis Houghton, Vitaly Bujanovsky, Karen Houghton, and Valery Polekh; Long Beach, California, 1979
During this time, the United States was in the middle of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. I corresponded with Polekh through letters, translated into Russian by Igor, a friend of Mr. Decker’s in the Los Angeles Philharmonic. In turn, Polekh would write me letters translated to English by his daughter. When I received his letters, the seal had been obviously opened, very probably by the postal service or the US government. But there was no James Bond stuff happening; it was just a student and teacher happily talking about horn and horn playing.
A letter from Valery Polekh to Karen Houghton.
As many know, Van Cliburn became one of the most famous musical ambassadors to Russia. In June 1958, he won the coveted Tchaikovsky Competition, an astonishing feat for an American pianist. Even during the Cold War and heightened tensions between our two countries, there were moments which were transcended by the power of music. The Moscow Symphony visited and performed in Los Angeles in 1960. And Mr. Decker and his wife were able to travel to Russia to visit Valery Polekh and his family in the 1980’s.
Music has a way of uniting all of us, regardless of our differences. As Henry Wadsworth Longfellow noted, “Music is the universal language of mankind.” I am profoundly grateful for the opportunities I have been given to learn from some of the finest teachers and players in the world. I strive to honor them every day in my teaching as I share my love for the horn.
Composer Spotlight—Ruth Gipps
by Caiti Beth McKinney
Hello, Horn Friends!
Happy February! This month, I am drawing your attention to a composer who has recently been experiencing a resurgence in popularity, Ruth Gipps. Born in a small, English seaside town in 1921, Gipps was an opinionated woman who tolerated no nonsense. This is perhaps unsurprising considering that she was regarded as a child prodigy in a time when even adult women performers, composers, and conductors in Classical music were still very few in number. Famously known for her direct, almost confrontational approach, Gipps staunchly opposed the Modernist movement and 12-tone compositional technique, instead choosing to follow in her mentors’ (Gordon Jacob and Ralph Vaughn Williams) styles, what she called “English pastoralism.” One of her priorities as a composer was to ensure that her music was accessible to a broad audience, containing memorable melodies in contrast to the Modernists’ embrace of atonality.
Ruth Gipps left us horn players several substantive works which are beginning to be performed more and more frequently, the most well-known of which is her Horn Concerto, Op. 58. What’s incredible to me, personally, about this piece is Gipps’ balance between intense technical virtuosity and melodic material; for example, in the first movement of the piece, interspersed between lyrical, flowing lines are blindingly fast arpeggiated motives which require the lightest of articulations. The second movement is a particular favorite of mine; it alternates between a lilting 7/8 and 3/8 time in a joyful scherzo which I find stuck in my head for days at a time. Also not to be missed are Gipps’ Sonatina, Op. 56 for horn and piano, and her surprisingly challenging narrated work, The Three Billy Goats Gruff for horn, oboe, and bassoon. If you are interested in learning more about this dynamic composer, check out Jill Halstead’s book entitled Ruth Gipps: Anti-Modernism, Nationalism and Difference in English Music. It’s a great read!
Eastern Standard, Part 1: The Ensemble
by Heidi Lucas
The days were tinged with the crispness of the oncoming 2014 fall season in western Pennsylvania; peak foliage loomed, and the air was charged with the anticipation born from the excitement and promise of a newly formed collaboration. At the time, Heidi Lucas (horn), Zach Collins (tuba), and Jacob Ertl (piano) were all on the faculty at Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP). They had met just prior to the beginning of the semester while recording for the Keystone Wind Ensemble album of works by Fisher Tull, through which they had been able to get a sense for each other as performers and as humans.
Lucas, Collins, and Ertl had their first trio performance as a part of a faculty recital that fall, and things clicked quickly for the group. They discovered a shared love of chamber music, found that they worked well together, and arranged to perform a recital each subsequent semester in order to keep the fun going. They held a contest to find a name for the group, and after sifting through numerous submissions, decided on “Eastern Standard,” although the name is taken from a craft beer as opposed to the time zone!
After having read through most of the available repertoire written for horn, tuba, and piano (which, at that point, they estimated to be around 2 dozen pieces), they decided that their mission would be to commission composers to write for the instrumentation, premiere, perform, and record the works, and try to raise awareness of the genre in order to promote new music and chamber music performance.
Eastern Standard (l-r): Heidi Lucas, Jacob Ertl, Zach Collins
The group has performed at IHS, ITEC, NERTEC, NEHW, SEHW, and SWHW conferences, as well as in concert at numerous universities, and more recently in public schools and community centers as part of their focus on outreach. In addition to the release of two albums—the first comprised of works that had not previously been recorded as well as three commissioned pieces, and the second entirely comprised of commissions—the group plans to release a third album of commissioned works in 2024. IUP awarded Eastern Standard a grant to support the creation of a documentary, which followed the process of the recording of their first album, Eastern Standard. Both Eastern Standard and their second album, Wanderlust, are available on streaming platforms. By December of 2024, the group will have commissioned and premiered over two dozen new works for this instrumentation. Although Collins remains at IUP, both Ertl and Lucas have moved to other institutions: Ertl is now on the faculty of Nazareth College, and Lucas at the University of Delaware. Despite the geographic challenges, the group continues to perform, tour, commission, record, and seek new ways to raise the awareness of both this type of ensemble and the composers who write for it. As part of the group’s website, they maintain a section with a listing of works for this instrumentation, as well as dissertations and relevant resources. Please contact them (via their website) if you know of any items to add to the lists.
For more information about the ensemble, the composers with whom they’ve worked, and upcoming projects, visit easternstandardtrio.com, and watch for Eastern Standard, Part 2—The Repertoire in the March issue of Horn and More.
Pedagogy Column—The Contrasting Styles of My Teachers
by Katerina Javurkovà, IHS 55 Featured Artist
I grew up in a small town outside of Prague, in the Czech Republic. I started horn at age nine, and I worked hard at mastering the instrument. My father was an amateur trumpet player, and he really wanted to see me succeed on the horn. By the time I was fifteen, I was practicing many hours a day, but something happened. I’m not even sure what it was, but my lips felt wrong, my embouchure felt wrong, and I couldn’t play.
I took a lot of time away from the horn. Then I began to play again, very slowly. I rebuilt my playing from the ground up, starting with Lesson One. I was young, and I wasn’t panicked; if I decided to do something different with my life, I could. I worked methodically, and finally recovered my playing, eventually realizing that many of the problems I had experienced were probably more mental than physical. The point here, though, is that you can overcome a traumatic thing like this.
I went on to study with Bedřich Tylšar—he and his brother Zdeněk were very famous Czech horn players—at the conservatory in Prague (the Pražská Konzervatoř). Mr. Tylšar was a strict teacher who insisted on perfect rhythm, perfect intonation, and absolutely consistent sound. He passed the Czech horn playing tradition down to me. Toward the end of my studies at the conservatory, I was able to spend six months at the conservatory in Paris, studying with the great French player André Cazalet. Mr. Cazalet taught me to be free, to trust my musical heart, to play with soul.
Mr. Cazalet also taught me the French system of warming up. It involves lots of scales and lots of precision. I found that if I do this routine daily, it takes me about forty minutes, and it makes me ready to face any playing challenge. But I have to do the warmup correctly: it must be in time, in tune, and accurate.
When I got back to Prague and continued with Mr. Tylšar, we occasionally had arguments about interpretation. Sometimes he would want more strictness while I would want more freedom. But he was able to see that the things I had learned from Mr. Cazalet made my playing more beautiful.
Through these two streams of pedagogy, one focusing on perfection of detail and the other on beauty and art (after warming up on perfection of detail), I became the horn player I am today. I now play third horn (and sometimes principal) in the Czech Philharmonic, and I love my job. I am a little sad that the old Czech style of horn playing is slowly being lost, but it is, at least, still demonstrated to this day in the great playing of Radek Baborák.
A Knock at the Door
by Dennis and Karen Houghton
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| Igor Stravinsky |
Imagine answering a knock on your front door to find Igor Stravinsky standing there, and he's got a question for you…about stopped horn!
You're a kid from Venice, California, growing up in the Great Depression, and you have a chronic stutter. But Southern California has opportunities: there's a big navy base in Long Beach, oil refineries in Torrance, and factory production all over the LA Basin. General Motors is building hundreds of cars per day at the South Gate factory, and Howard Hughes is building airplanes in Burbank. There is radio technology, and the movie industry is beginning to boom. There is public transportation—you can take the Pacific Electric "Red Line" from Venice to Long Beach in about 30 minutes, or Long Beach to Hollywood in about the same time.
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| P&E Line - about 1940 |
There had been lots happening in the Los Angeles music scene for years: there were the silent films produced by a number of movie studios, each having their own theaters, and each theater had its own "house orchestra." These attracted musicians from Boston and New York, Germany and even Russia. The Los Angeles Philharmonic had been founded in 1919 by millionaire William Andrews Clark (whose family fortune was made in the Montana copper mines). The Philharmonic had naturally become a hub for the LA Society elite, and they began recruiting talent and soloists from major European orchestras. Sergei Rachmaninov thrilled audiences with his piano concerti and symphonies. Although he didn't move to LA until 1942, he was a regular guest soloist. Korngold is writing the biggest movie scores, and Schoenberg emigrated in 1934 and is now teaching at UCLA. Many of these greats have escaped the rising facism in Europe, and for many there is no option to return home...and now Igor Stravinsky has come to stay!
LOS ANGELES TIMES, FEB. 21, 1935
L.A. Goes Mad for Stravinsky
“[Stravinsky] has been in Los Angeles four days and the town is agog. Only the visit of Einstein…has created as much interest. The orchestra…has literally slaved to prepare his program of suites from the Apollon Musagète, Petrouchka, Petite, and The Fire Bird precisely as he would have them.”
Stravinsky, who eventually settled in Los Angeles in 1940, continued to guest-conduct the orchestra, on occasion, at the Hollywood Bowl.
Your name is James Decker, and your parents, Ben Decker and Margaret Hapgood, had a musical variety show in which Maggie sang and performed the "glass harp," playing tunes on pitched wine glasses. There is a longer thread of musical talent too: your grandfather Hapgood was a brass band leader in England who had been presented with a silver cornet by Queen Victoria. This silver cornet was passed down and became your first instrument. Grandfather Hapgood led the "Firehouse Band" in McPherson, Kansas, after immigrating to the USA. (There's still a band shell at the park in McPherson, but the small town can no longer support a community band.) In your early teens, you played that cornet, accompanying your mom on radio broadcasts.
James “Jim” Decker switched from cornet to the horn at the age of 16 at the request of his school orchestra director. About this time, Jim had the good fortune to meet and study under James Stagliano, the new principal horn of the Los Angeles Philharmonic who had arrived from the St. Louis Symphony in 1935. At 17, Jim played in one of FDR's depression era work programs, the "National Youth Administration Orchestra" under the direction of Leopold Stokowski. Jim was also a member of the Long Beach Community Orchestra and the Peter Meremblum Youth Orchestra.
Jim performed Oberon at the Wilshire Ebell Theater in Los Angeles when he was 19. Afterward, when the other musicians raved about his finesse in the delicate opening bars, Jim replied wryly, "I tried to start that note three times before it spoke!"
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| The Wilshire Ebell Theater |
When the US entered WWII, Jim wanted to serve in the military, but due to a perforated right eardrum he couldn't pass the army physical. However, his "draft deferment" presented other unique musical opportunities: he played in the National Symphony in Washington DC in 1942-43, then back to Los Angeles for a stint with the LA Phil in 1943-44. These were still the days when the "audition" would have consisted of playing for the conductor in his dressing room—or possibly even receiving an offer without an audition, simply based on reputation or referral by a teacher or colleague. There was a downside to this system too: many conductors were tyrannical, and a player could be fired on the spot.
Jim and others, including Vince De Rosa, Gale Robinson, and Richard Perisi recorded newsreel, movie, and radio broadcasts as their contribution to the war effort. With so much recording going on, Jim played on soundtracks for wartime pictures starring Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Stewart, and Humphrey Bogart. Due to the nature of the contracts with the various studios, Jim likely wouldn't have known the movie title or the actors involved. He would say, "In those days, you just showed up to the call and played what was on the stand." Jim played the post-war 1946-47 season with the Kansas City Symphony, but moved back to LA for good after that year. He "auditioned" for the principal horn chair at Columbia Studios by recording a sound track. His former teacher, James Stagliano, didn't want to play a concert and asked Jim to play principal horn. This was his introduction to Otto Klemperer and Igor Stravinsky, conducting Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony and The Firebird Suite, respectively.
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| The Tryon Road home as it looks today. |
The 1950s brought a post-war recession as the country was flooded with returning service members. But as these folks bought homes and started families, the economy boomed and so did the birth rates...Baby Boom! By now, Jim had become a first call hornist under contract with Columbia, Fox, Paramount, and CBS television, and later Disney studios. He was playing as many as three or four sessions per day, and was able to buy a home in the Hollywood hills. The elaborate Mediterranean revival home on Tryon road became known as "The Castle."
In 1962 Jim got the invitation to record Firebird under Igor Stravinsky on the Columbia Masterworks label. "The highlight of my career," according to Jim, "was playing principal under Stravinsky in many of his most famous works." According to Stravinsky’s assistant Robert Craft, Jim was one of three orchestra musicians most favored and requested by Stravinsky. It was at this Tryon Road house where Mr. Stravinsky knocked on the door: his respect for Jim's judgement and musicianship was absolute.
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| James Decker with "the Maestro" circa 1963 |
So, the "knock at the door" didn't happen by chance. There was certainly talent, a bit of luck, and being in the right place at the right time.
What Karen and I (and, certainly, all of Jim's colleagues and students) remember best was his passion for teaching, his emotional connection to the music, and his congeniality. He was blessed with both talent and opportunity. He wanted to pass along his knowledge and wisdom, and to encourage all who followed him. Our friend Milton Kicklighter, now retired from the Buffalo Philharmonic, said it best: "Jim was a very famous hornist that made the rest of us horn players feel his equal."
