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.
Refining Your Embouchure
by Peter Luff
Vice-President, International Horn Society
Dear fellow horn players,
When asked to give a short lesson on a topic that I think is very important, I immediately thought of embouchure stability. Having a stable, efficient embouchure is probably the most important contributing factor to a happy, consistent playing life. I tell my students … “you are only as good as your worst day” … by this, I mean that what we consider to be our worst playing day, must be acceptable to our colleagues and the audience. Therefore, consistency is of paramount importance.
I am a big fan of buzzing, both with and without the mouthpiece, and ensure my students do this as part of their practice routine. By tilting the mouthpiece down (pivoting whilst maintaining contact with the lower lip) and then away from the embouchure during the buzz (to a free buzz), a player can immediately feel which muscle groups are being employed to form the embouchure (usually by their activation in the absence of the mouthpiece). The muscles surrounding the mouthpiece (Orbicularis Oris) form the basis of your embouchure, and when formed correctly (firm corners, flat chin, alla Philip Farkas) will hold a good setup in place. These supporting muscles are naturally very strong, and when employed correctly will help to provide a solid platform to aid stamina. The key here is to develop an efficient default position for the lips so that less mouthpiece pressure is required for the production of the note, particularly in the high register.
We are all physiologically different and as such need to find a setup that works with our unique lip size and teeth/jaw position, but there are basic rules that must be adhered to. Firstly, your lips must act as a double reed would, working in synergy and vibrating against one another, not a single reed where the bottom lip folds over the bottom teeth leaving the top lip to do all of the work. Apart from the obvious visual indicators, a good setup will give you a bright, loud buzz on the mouthpiece, whereas a poor setup will produce a veiled, airy sound. Learning to free buzz, by employing the “mouthpiece tilting method” as discussed before, is an excellent means of getting the bottom lip to do its job. In the vast majority of cases I recommend two thirds of the mouthpiece on the top lip with the remaining one third on the bottom. This serves two purposes, it allows good transition between high and low registers using the same basic setup and provides a resonant, projecting sound.
ジョナサン・ハミル - 東京録音スタジオ
東京交響楽団首席ホルン奏者
Engish version Jonathan Hammill - the Tokyo recording studios
東京在住のプロフェッショナルミュージシャンとしての醍醐味は、幅広いスタジオレコーディングの機会に巡り逢えることです。日本では、メジャー映画、ビデオゲームサウンドトラック、コマーシャル、ジングル、Jポップの大半は東京でレコーディングされます。日本が世界に誇れるもう一つのエンタテインメントのカタチ。それは「アニメ」と称されるアニメーション映画で、日本では大人気です。毎年製作されるアニメの数は、東京在住のミュージシャンに多くのレコーディング機会を与えてくれます。映画、テレビ特番、連続ドラマ、DVDシリーズ、子供のためのアニメ、大人のためのアニメ、ありとあらゆるアニメが製作されています。私は幸運にも2004年以降、子供に限らず世代を超えて大人気のアニメ、「ドラえもん」のファーストホルンを全て担当しています。作曲家沢田完氏による楽曲は楽しく、まるでハリウッド映画のような、壮大で、早くて激しく、荘厳華麗なホルンソロパートが散りばめられているところは大好きです。
大人向けアニメ「TIGER&BUNNY」や「神撃のバハムート」の音楽担当池頼広氏もまた素晴らしいスコアを書かれる作曲家です。ぬいぐるみのようなふわふわのタイトルとは裏腹に、「TIGER&BUNNY」の力強い楽曲に向かうには、相当な体力を要します。「神撃のバハムート」についてはとにかく吹きっぱなしで、ホルンのあらゆる可能性を追求されます。このアニメ2作品は圧倒的な人気でしたので、レコーディングはもちろんですが、それぞれについてコンサートを3度もやりました。大きなコンサートホールで開催されたコンサートは、完売でした。熱狂的なファンの皆さんは、大好きなアニメキャラクターのコスプレをして来場し、映画のクレジット等で私たちの名前をチェックしてくれたのでしょうか、終演後は楽屋口で、時折名指しで演奏家の私たちを目当てにサインを求めて来ます。
Jonathan Hammill - the Tokyo recording studios
by Jonathan Hammill, Tokyo Symphony Principal Horn
One of the great parts about being a professional musician in Tokyo is the opportunity to do a wide variety of studio recordings. Most of the major movie and video game soundtracks, commercials, jingles, and J-pop recordings in Japan take place in Tokyo. There is another form of entertainment however that makes Japan unique to the rest of the world. It's no secret that the Japanese love their animation films (aka "anime"), and the amount of anime produced each year provides Tokyo studio musicians with an abundance of recording opportunities. Movies, TV specials, long running TV series, DVD series, anime for kids, anime for adults. You name it, they make it. Since 2004 I have been fortunate to play 1st horn on all of the movie soundtracks for the popular kids anime (which is also loved by many adults) "Doraemon". The best part about playing Doraemon is that the composer, Kan Sawada, writes very fun, dare I say "Hollywood-esque" horn parts. Fast, loud, all over the horn, very rhythmical, and peppered with lyrical horn solos.
Ike Yoshihiro writes fantastic scores for hit animation films geared toward the adult crowd, such as "Tiger and Bunny" and "Bahamut". Although the soft and furry title suggests otherwise, Tiger and Bunny is very demanding and requires some serious stamina. In fact, the Bahamut score is constantly on the face and tests the extreme registers of the horn. Recording these scores is one thing, but these two anime films were so popular that we even did 3 live concerts each for both. They were completely sold out in big arena-sized halls. These diehard fans not only come to the concerts in full costume of their favorite characters, but they even mob the musicians outside the stage door for autographs. Sometimes even knowing musicians by name (our names are in the movie credits).
Ed Lockwood - Richard Watkins on the horn solo in the film “Prometheus”
Here is my photo of Maestro Richard Watkins, on April 2nd, 2012 at Abbey Road Studio One, having just recorded the music at the start of Prometheus.
The session started at 10:00am with a HUGE orchestra and a new pile of music by Harry Gregson-Williams, who was also conducting. Everyone was sightreading and Richard had just arrived and taken off his coat (so, no warm-up). I was sitting next to him.
Right at the very the start of the session Harry said,"Hey, Richard, there's some horn solo stuff in this. Shall we do it first to get it out of the way?
"Okay, sure", said Richard.
Richard played it perfectly first time. It's not often that a studio orchestra breaks into applause, but they certainly did that day.
Harry and the technicians could find no fault with Richard's solos but asked for them all again, anyway, I suppose just so they could make sure they hadn't misheard. Richard played it all again - and then again - all perfect, with rapturous applause after each recording.
As I had my camera with me I thought it important to record this historical event.
....not that this was anything particularly special for Richard. He seems to do that kind of thing most days...
