Gail Williams is admired for her tenure at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, her teaching at Northwestern University and at many clinics and workshops around the world, her solo and ensemble playing, and her support of new music.

Gail grew up on a farm in a musical family. Her mother studied percussion and viola; her brother, clarinet. Gail studied with Jack Covert at Ithaca College, then earned a master's degree at Northwestern University and performed with Lyric Opera of Chicago for four years before winning the audition for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1978. She was assistant principal until winning the position of associate principal in 1984, where she remained until retiring in 1998.

Gail teaches at Northwestern University (since 1989), gives master classes at innumerable conservatories and workshops, is horn soloist with major orchestras, and is dedicated to performing chamber music. In 2001, 2005, and 2009, she has served as a judge for the Horn Solo Competition in Porcia, Italy and has coached young brass musicians with Summit Brass since 1986. She has been on the faculty of the Swiss Brass Week in Leukerbad, Switzerland for several years. Her music education degree and playing experience come together in her current teaching.

Gail is principal horn with the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra and was principal horn with the Saito Kenin Orchestra in Japan in 2004 and the World Orchestra for Peace in 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2009.

Gail has performed as soloist with the Chicago Symphony, San Antonio Symphony, Sinfonia da Camera, New World Symphony, the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra, Syracuse Symphony, Fairbanks Symphony, Green Bay Symphony, and a number of regional orchestras.

Gail is a founding member of the Chicago Chamber Musicians and Summit Brass. She has performed with the Vermeer Quartet, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in New York City, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the Skaneateles Music Festival, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, and the Olympic Peninsula Chamber Festival, and she was the featured artist on a chamber music series in Ottawa, Canada with the National Arts Orchestra of Canada.

Gail is active in commissioning projects and has premiered new works by Dana Wilson, Anthony Plog, Oliver Knussen, Yehudi Wyner, Collins Matthews, and others. In 1995, she premiered Deep Remembering by Dana Wilson and Anthony Plog’s Postcards at the International Horn Society Workshop in Yamagata, Japan. In 1997, she premiered Dana Wilson’s Horn Concerto with the Syracuse Symphony. A year later, she performed the Knussen Horn Concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Maestro Knussen. She helped commission Yehudi Wyner’s Horntrio, and was involved in the orchestration of Dragons in the Sky by Mark Schultz. She premiered another horn and piano work by Dana Wilson, Musings, in 2003 and performed the US premiere of a concerto for Horn and Orchestra by Collins Matthews at Northwestern University in June of 2005.

Gail can be heard on recordings from Summit Brass, including solo recordings 20th Century Settings and Deep Remembering, and Northwestern University’s Goddess Triology, featuring compositions by John McCabe and works for horn and percussion by Charles Taylor and Eric Wilder. A CD with the Chicago Chamber Musicians was nominated for a Grammy award.

Gail has been honored by Ithaca College with a Distinguished Alumni Award and an honorary doctorate. She received the Charles Deering McCormick Teaching Professorship at Northestern University in 2005, which allowed her to commission and performed new chamber works by Douglas Hill, Dana Wilson, and Augusta Reed Thomas. She was a member of the IHS Advisory Council (1997-2000) and received the Punto award in 2008.

Don Peterson played in the Utah Symphony for 49 years (as principal for 43 years), taught at local schools and universities, and eventually turned to piano tuning. He attributes his ability in piano tuning to his years of playing the horn. "Each note is made with a different embouchure, so you have to hear the note before it is played," he said. "Piano tuning came naturally to me."

Don was born in 1926 and started performing with the Utah Symphony when he was a senior at Provo High School. He was in the US Army for a time, joining in 1943, but the war ended before he could be sent overseas.

Don attended Brigham Young University and the University of Utah and taught at both universities and at Mr. Olympus Junior High in Salt Lake City while continuing to play with the symphony. He traveled with the symphony. "We traveled all over Europe and in all but two countries in South America," he said. "We were the first to play in the new Abravanel Hall, the home of the Utah Symphony in Salt Lake City."

Don learned piano tuning through the Piano Technicians Guild, is a Registered Piano Technician, and has been tuning pianos for over 30 years. He tunes over a hundred pianos for the LDS Church, twice a year. He is also a licensed private pilot, keeping up his license even at age 83.

Don was honored with the Punto award at the 1987 International Horn Symposium at Brigham Young University in Provo UT.

Jack Herrick taught for 30 years at the University of Northern Colorado (1972-2002) and maintained a full performance schedule during that time.

Jack was born in St. Paul in 1946. He started on cornet and switched to horn in 1960 on the advice of his band director, George Regis, at the high school in Stillwater MN. He studied with Christopher Leuba in MN, James Miller and Chuck Kavalovski at the University of Northern Colorado (UNC), and an intensive 10-day course with Dale Clevenger in 1973. "All of these men had a great impact on my life and career. I am indebted to each of them for helping to shape my musical life," he says.

Jack joined the US Army and was stationed with the Norad Band in Colorado Springs CO between his undergraduate and graduate studies. During his teaching years, he was a regular sub and extra with the Colorado Symphony, principal with the Denver Chamber Orchestra and Colorado Ballet, and played with the Aries Brass Quintet in Denver and Rocky Mountain Brass Quintet at UNC. He also often participated in clinics and workshops in the Colorado area.

During summers, Jack played in numerous festivals, including the Colorado Festival in Boulder, Central City Opera, Idaho Music Festival in Boise, the Sun Valley Festival, Four Corners Opera in Durango CO, and especially the Peter Britt Music Festival in Jacksonville OR, where he was principal from 1977 until he retired in 2004 and where he appeared as soloist under all three music directors.

While at UNC, Jack recorded the David Amram Concerto for horn and wind orchestra with Gene Corporon conducting. He was a member of Denver Brass, participating in recording numerous CDs and videos, and he recorded Anton Reicha Wind Quintets on Crystal Records with the Westwood Wind Quintet. He was also one of a consortium of hornists (assembled by Thomas Bacon) who commissioned the orchestration and wind ensemble version of Mark Schultz’s Dragons in the Sky.

After retirement in 2004, Jack sold al his instruments and his home and moved with his wife into an RV. "I have discovered there is life after the horn, but I do still miss playing and all the great people I got to work with over the years."

Jack was honored with the Punto Award at the 2008 International Horn Workshop in Denver.

(front) Leipzig Horn Quartet; (rear) Wiener Waldhornverein (Siegfried Schwarzl, far right)

Siegfried Schwarzl was a member and director of the Wiener Waldhornverein (WWV – Vienna Horn Society) and an authority on its history. He was president of the society at its 100th anniversary in 1983 and wrote a book (published in English in 1987) entitled, "The development of horn ensemble music from the romantic era to the present time in Vienna and in other cultural circles."

Schwarzl studied horn with Gottfried von Freiberg and became a member of the Vienna State Opera orchestra, but his music career was interrupted with military duty during the war. Afterward, he directed the stage band of the State Opera, but also studied climatology and became a respected climatologist. He particularly loved the Vienna horn, horn ensembles, and the Vienna Horn Society.

Schwarzl was a member of the IHS Advisory Council (1982-1989). He was honored with the Punto award at the 1985 International Horn Symposium at Towson State University in Baltimore MD, where he gave a lecture/demonstration on the development of horn ensemble music and the Vienna horn. His article about the International Symposium for Brass Instrument Players' Chamber Music in Hungary appears in the October 1985 issue of The Horn Call.