by Gabriella Ibarra, Liber Oscher, and José José Giménez
With great excitement, Venezuelan horn players welcomed and enjoyed the presence of the exceptional and much-loved Sarah Willis. On her first visit to the country, Sarah worked with the kids of the National System of Orchestras. As a Venezuelan musician, I am pleased to know that the National School of Horn in Venezuela is still standing with devotion and anticipating excellence in the continuous training of new generations of horn players. I am proud of all the Venezuelan teachers, but I especially appreciate and recognize the effort of our masters, Liber Oscher and José José Gimenez, who have also provided us with a brief review of this event—thank you!
As part of the celebrations of the 47th anniversary of El Sistema, Caracas received one of the most recognized celebrities in the world of classical music. This is Sarah Willis, horn player in the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, and also a notable figure in the world of music journalism. On her YouTube channel, she receives thousands of views from around the world thanks to her Horn Hangouts, a talk show with personalities from the world of music.
The news of Sarah's arrival in Caracas took the Social Center for Music by surprise. The news was received with overwhelming enthusiasm by her fans at El Sistema: those who had shared with her during the event Encounters with Gustavo Dudamel in Los Angeles, and those who dreamed to meet her in person one day.
Her visit had a special focus: to give a gift to the new generation of young horn players of the Sinfónica Nacional Infantil de Venezuela (National Children's Symphony of Venezuela), working with them for two days in individual and group settings. The students from SNIV received relevant information about horn technique, performance of works from the solo repertoire, answers to all their concerns about the career, and about managing their nerves—a subject that Sarah handled with special delicacy and empathy, revealing that in her early days, she also faced tough challenges in a highly competitive world. She shared very useful strategies for avoiding anxiety in performance.
Then, she gave time to members of the professional orchestras. The National Horn School, sponsored by the Hilti Foundation, had the opportunity to offer young professionals from the orchestras of El Sistema two days of masterclasses, which included solo repertoire, warm-up, technique, and a clinic on Mahler's 3rd Symphony, which was performed on February 18 with the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra—with Sarah herself in the horn section.
Sarah has a simple teaching methodology, allowing her to focus on the essentials of good playing. In her pedagogical discourse, Sarah frequently mentioned ideas which effectively help one understand how sound works in performance. Her way of presenting a masterclass is guided by two fundamental ideas: always perfect attacks, and always a beautiful sound. These two ideas helped the class progress in breathing, embouchure formation, posture, singing, dynamics, sound projection, hand position, creativity in the use of articulations, beauty in slurs, and especially the low register of the horn. In this last category, listening to Sarah was itself a masterclass on low horn. Then, she dedicated time to play together with all the participants, with ensembles, and with the horn players of the Juan José Landaeta, Simón Bolívar Baroque, and Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestras. All gathered on stage to play, as an encore, Mozart y Mambo, an impressive work by an imaginary Cuban Mozart who reinvented the Rondo from Mozart's Horn Concerto No. 3 in E-flat as a Caribbean festival, with improvisations and swing.
In her performance of Mozart's Horn Concerto No. 3, she displayed a regal first movement with elegant phrasing and an exquisitely improvised cadenza. A light and subtle second movement followed, with an energetic third movement, accurate in sound and style, making a graceful, joyful completion of the performance. 
Sarah's trip through Caracas culminated with her joining the horn section of the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra to perform Mahler’s Symphony No. 3, the main theme of which sets the horns as protagonists—an amazing closing event for the 47th anniversary of El Sistema. The children and young horn players from Caracas and the rest of the country who came together to meet their idol left more in love with the horn, and we all expect this wonderful artist to come again soon.
