Overcoming Difficulties, and Learning by Listening (Part 1)
by Félix Dervaux
Félix Dervaux is a horn player from France. He is the former solo horn of the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam. He currently enjoys a solo and chamber music career, and lives in Vienna, Austria. I interviewed him about his upbringing as a horn player and his advice to students. The essay below puts Félix’s words into a narrative flow about horn playing and pedagogy. This is the first of a two-part article.
--Daniel Grabois
I grew up in the north of France, 200 km north of Paris, where there are many municipal bands and orchestras. That’s where I started playing; wind bands are an important social tradition in northern France, with origins in the working classes. I went to college at the CNSMD (Conservatoire Supérieur de Musique et de Danse) in Lyon, studying with David Guerrier and Michel Molinaro. David is an excellent horn and trumpet player: he had won first prize in the Munich Competition on trumpet, but then played principal horn in the Orchestre National de France before starting a solo career, and then coming back to play principal trumpet in the orchestra of Radio France a couple of years ago.
He had many different points of view because of his playing career. I was a good but not excellent player when I entered music school, and Guerrier explained that I had to fix all the parts of my playing that were not excellent. He was demanding, especially concerning my low register, which I had trouble with at that time. Both of my teachers were very strict with me about that. They insisted that I should not only aim to be a good high horn player but, rather, to be good in all possible registers, and therefore assigning me all kinds of low register pieces. I could not even play the Till Eulenspiegel opening call at the time. The solution I found to get better in all registers was to teach myself to be a low horn player and then "attach" my high register to the low register since the high register came naturally to me. The contrary is probably also true: for players who are naturally comfortable in the low range, they should work carefully on their high register first and "attach" their low register to that. I played many of the Neuling Etudes—which I liked because they are not only technical but also musical, which helps prevent one from getting bored too quickly. (If you are continually bored when you practice, “boring” becomes a part of your playing.) That hard work has proven to be effective for me. I even had to play the Till Eulenspiegel solo in the first round of my Concertgebouw audition, so there is always some hope!
I kept (and still keep) myself enthusiastic and motivated by inventing challenges for myself. I always try to map out little steps. Everybody’s little steps will be different, but once you put yourself on that path and it actually works, you stay motivated. To build my technical background, I practiced a comprehensive and thorough one-hour routine every day. I usually went through it right after I woke up, because if I didn’t do it then, I couldn't find the motivation to do it later in the day.
If you want to be a good teacher, you need to really know your students. Everyone reacts differently to teaching. You must be a coach and a psychologist at the same time. I believe there are different steps in a horn player's life toward learning the instrument. First, when you are young, you just play to have a good time. It’s fun and a good social experience. You do that for a couple of years, and it starts your learning process. Then, the next step is to correct mistakes and bad habits as soon as possible. You go to music school, and you start making your playing right. You should aim for great horn playing, but you should not be frightened, because the horn has become something fun in your life. You must correct bad habits at this time. A great example is making sure your embouchure is correct: the mouthpiece is placed at the right spot on the lips with the angle of the mouthpiece coming out from your mouth also correct. These things become harder and harder to correct later (I had to correct my mouthpiece placement while at the university, so I know how hard this is). When I changed my playing, I spent a few months just working with the new mouthpiece placement, especially in the low register.
Some tips: when you are a music student, devote a huge amount of your time to music. It is not just the practicing: think and talk about horn and music, listen to music, listen to great horn players in recordings, and go to concerts. Listening is absolutely crucial: listen all the time! I especially recommend finding a horn player you love, who, ideally has a large discography, and listen to that player’s recordings of different repertoire. How does that player attack, sustain, and so on? Once you have found a player you like, make a playlist, and listen over and over. You will improve just by doing this.
I also spent a lot of time learning to play the accompaniments of horn pieces on the piano. It is yet another way to learn the repertoire without over-practicing. You can also practice visualization, or work by heart while singing. These are just a few ways of practicing away from the horn. People don’t like to say this, but it is possible to practice the horn too much. Many fail at auditions because they play too much. Immerse yourself in music, but don’t over-practice, and don’t hurt yourself. Find a balance.
Weverton Santos - Ave Maria
Meet Hornist and Countertenor Weverton Santos
My name is Weverton Santos, and I am a Brazilian from Sarzedo city in the state of Minas Gerais. Music started to be part of my life when I was 11 years old through the Musical Project in Sarzedo where I was introduced to the horn. A few years later, I graduated with a bachelor's degree in horn from the State University of Minas Gerais. After this, I was invited to be a guest musician with the Minas Gerais Symphony Orchestra where I continue to play. Among other educational experiences are several masterclasses with national and international teachers as well as some competitions in which I was a prize winner. I have also been able to learn about other cultures outside of Brazil, and these opportunities provided me with a great deal of musical and professional maturity. In 2015, I attended a Baroque Music Seminar in Rostock, Germany. In 2019, I was selected to be part of The Orchestra of the Americas Mexico tour. In 2020, I was selected to participate in a chamber music festival in Portillo, Chile. And earlier this year, I learned that I had been accepted into the master’s program at the Eastman School of Music where I will begin study this fall.
But what about singing? Where does it come from? I started singing in church in Sarzedo with my brother and sister after I had already begun playing the horn. Singing helped me better understand the challenges of being a horn player. After a few years, I started to study singing with the same determination with which I studied horn, and I felt a noticeable difference when playing the horn. That's when I thought, "What if I combined the two abilities?" So I did. Working seriously on both, I could see more clearly that both were part of my deepest essence. Since then, I can't do without either. One helps the other, and both help me.
Working as Festival Staff
by Martina Adams
I have been involved in music festivals every summer for as long as I can remember. My mom was on the faculty of the Csehy Summer School of Music, and I started going with her to camp around the age of five. While our parents were teaching, I would hang out with the other faculty members’ children, but when I was old enough, I started attending as a camper for another 4 or 5 years. Csehy was the first place I ever played a horn: my mom told the horn teacher that I was interested, so she let me blow a few notes on her horn, and I was hooked.
Since Csehy, I have attended several other festivals, varying in size and type, including the Philadelphia International Music Festival (PIMF), Curtis Summerfest, Boston University Tanglewood Institute Horn Workshop, the All-City Philadelphia Orchestra’s Italy tour, Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival, and the Atlantic Brass Quintet Seminar.
In my third year as an undergraduate student, I decided I didn’t want to pay to attend a summer festival but wanted to see if I could actually make money while not in school. “Normal kids” seemed to always have summer jobs; could there also be a summer music job option? I had been thinking about my time at PIMF as a student. I enjoyed it then, and had some friends who had worked there, so I decided to reach out.
I’m currently completing my Master’s degree at the Curtis Institute of Music where I study with Jennifer Montone and Jeffrey Lang of the Philadelphia Orchestra. I received my Bachelor’s degree in Horn Performance at Temple University where I had also studied with Jeff Lang. I’m from Philadelphia, attended Philadelphia Orchestra concerts as a kid, and knew I wanted to go to Temple from a young age since my entire family studied music there (my two older sisters and both of my parents). I had also heard great things about Jeff as a teacher, and after having worked with him in a sectional with my youth orchestra, I knew I wanted to study with him at Temple. Students at PIMF receive a number of private lessons with members of the Philadelphia Orchestra, so that Philadelphia Orchestra connection with the festival was the primary reason I first attended in 2014.
Every summer since 2018, I have been working at PIMF. I have auditioned only for free summer festivals since then. I was supposed to go to the American Institute of Musical Studies (AIMS) in Austria in 2020, but like everything else that year, it didn’t happen, and it was postponed to this summer. But since my original audition for AIMS, I got married and my priorities have changed. Ultimately, I decided I didn’t want to be apart from my husband for so much of the summer—plus, I’ve grown to enjoy working during the summer; so I decided to return to PIMF again where my husband also works now.
I didn’t know what working at a festival would be like before I started. The only experience I had working at a summer camp was volunteering at the Vacation Bible School at my church for a few years, and those skills helped me understand how to work with kids. But the vital, behind-the-scenes planning was an unknown to me.
I started at PIMF five years ago as a student manager (counselor), and every summer I have been given more responsibilities. Now my role at the festival is Orchestra Co-Director, which involves running all of the logistics and behind-the-scenes aspects of the program. Before the festival, I work with our artistic director on the seating auditions. I communicate with all orchestra students and their families to answer any questions they have, with the conductors on the repertoire they choose, and then I send that music to students ahead of the festival. We have one orchestra in our June session and three in July, so planning ahead of time and communicating with staff is crucial to operating three orchestras, especially when it comes to setting up the rehearsal spaces and coordinating the grand finale concert in which all three orchestras perform.
I also get to do some teaching while at the festival. I run wind/brass sectionals as needed for the orchestras, and coach one or two chamber groups. Coaching is rewarding and helps me learn how to structure chamber rehearsals for my own groups. From the summers coaching groups of varying levels, ages, and instrumentation, I’ve learned a great deal from the students about how to efficiently run a rehearsal, about important musical aspects to consider, and especially about not taking the very basics of music-making for granted.
Another job I’ve taken on since last year is directing our Chamber Music Intensive program. Here, a few select chamber groups get to perform off-campus and practice what it’s like to run their own chamber music concert. The students have to provide spoken introductions to the pieces they perform, so we have a class dedicated to public speaking. We also provide the students with other classes throughout the session on issues such as performance anxiety, college auditions, and freelancing, in addition to hearing from professionals about running your own music business.
Maintaining “chops” while working at a festival
Keeping up my embouchure is definitely the hardest part of the festival for me. The first few days, while all the physical set-up happens and as students settle in, are the most hectic. But horn players know that taking even one day completely off means that we have ground to recover during the next couple of days.
It’s also difficult to maintain function if I don’t manage to get a good warm-up but then have to play in the morning orchestra rehearsals if we need a part covered. The longer I’ve been working at PIMF, the more I realize how important it is to find time each morning to get a good, undistracted warm-up.
Attending a music festival forces you to be smart about your time because you have such a strict schedule yet have to play most of the day. Working at a festival is the same, except no one is carving out “private practice” time for you—you need to figure that out for yourself while fulfilling your other responsibilities. A benefit I have built into my contract is that I will get a couple of lessons with a Philadelphia Orchestra member during the festival; this provides additional motivation to keep my chops ready while I’m working.
Working at a festival has made me prioritize my horn playing, as “absence does make the heart grow fonder.” Coordinating so many details behind-the-scenes means that I have less time with my horn. Most players know that the more time you take off to prioritize non-horn responsibilities, the slower the journey back will be; so I am forced to thoughtfully prioritize. I truly enjoy being around students each summer who take music seriously and work hard to improve. It is inspiring to me and helps me want to continue to get better, too.
Historic Brass Society: Call for Contributions
Sixth International Romantic Brass Symposium
Romantic Brass in Context: 19th-Century Brass Instruments in Military, Church, Chamber, Opera, and Orchestra
Thursday April 20 – Saturday April 22, 2023, in Bern (Switzerland)
Held by Hochschule der Künste Bern (HKB)
The well-established Romantic Brass Symposia in Bern present current research on brass instruments, concentrating on music of the 19th century (1789–1914). After conferences on the keyed trumpet and the ophicleide, French horns, the materiality of brass instruments, the saxhorn, the conservation of historical brass instruments, and the trombone and acoustics, this sixth edition is open to all brass-related topics, highlighting the interaction of brass instruments in their musical contexts. It will be held in collaboration with the Historic Brass Society. Keynote addresses will be given by Sandy Coffin, Ignace De Keyser, Trevor Herbert, Sabine Klaus, Arnold Myers, and Anneke Scott.
We call for papers, lecture recitals, and concerts with spoken commentary on all topics of brass instruments from the 19th century, including historically informed performance, style, repertoire, history, and instruments. We expect that presentations will be given live and in person. The official language for the conference is English.
Papers and lecture recitals should be no longer than 20 minutes (followed by 10 minutes for discussion); shorter presentations (10 min. plus 5 min. for discussion) are equally welcome. Concerts should not exceed 45 minutes. (Details of available keyboard instruments will be available on the website).
Please mail submissions to daniel.allenbach@hkb.bfh.ch by September 30, 2022. Proposals should be in English (c. 400 words), describing the topic and including the following:
- Abstract (background, research questions, aims, and significance);
- Name, postal and email addresses, and institutional affiliation of proposer; and,
- Type of submission (short paper, long paper, lecture recital, concert). All presenters must register for the conference.
Confirmation of accepted papers will be announced by December 1, 2022. The scientific committee is composed of Sandy Coffin (HBS head of events committee), Anneke Scott (HBS board of directors), Martin Skamletz (HKB head of Institute Interpretation), and Adrian v. Steiger (HKB Institute Interpretation, HBS board of directors).
All presenters must register for the conference.
The symposium website is www.hkb-interpretation.ch/rbic. All information on program, fees, and accommodation will be published there as well.
Metropolitan Horn Authority
left to right: Blair Hamrick, Ser Konvalin, Kevin Newton, Peter DelGrosso
Since its founding in 2017, Metropolitan Horn Authority has been the premier contemporary horn ensemble in New York City. MHA members include Peter DelGrosso (founder), Blair Hamrick (Contemporaneous, eGALitarian), Ser Konvalin (The Orchestra Now), and Kevin Newton (Imani Winds). The group was formed to highlight the horn quartet largely through original music performed in conventional and unconventional venues. The impetus for this ensemble gained momentum when MHA won the Metropolitan Transit Authority Arts & Design’s “Music Under New York” competition, performing at Rikers Island, and then being featured soloists with The Yonkers Philharmonic—all within their first year. While continuing to perform as a horn quartet, Metropolitan Horn Authority has expanded the ensemble to include electric guitar, bass, and drums. This unique septet performs original arrangements and compositions to rave reviews at live music venues such as Rockwood Music Hall and DROM. Earlier this year, MHA completed a successful tour through Virginia that included educational outreach concerts and a masterclass and recital at Virginia Commonwealth University. Currently, Metropolitan Horn Authority is preparing for an Educational Residency at the Pierrot Chamber Music Festival beginning on July 21, 2022. Look out for more recordings and future tour dates. Metropolitan Horn Authority is bringing the horn to everyone!
Música Mexicana para el Corno en IHS 54
por Keith Eitzen
El Cuarteto de Trompa Río Bravo es un grupo de cornistas, que juntos reúnen un total de 107 años de experiencia profesional en orquestas mexicanas y se han unido para presentar música mexicana para corno en el Simposio IHS 54. México tiene una larga historia de música clásica y muchos conjuntos profesionales de tiempo completo. Cuando llegué a México en 1985, los cornistas eran casi en su totalidad extranjeros, pero el panorama del corno realmente ha despegado en los últimos años. Estamos emocionados de compartir nueva música de recital con la IHS.
Los integrantes del Cuarteto de Trompa Río Bravo son:
- Claire Hellweg, Corno Principal de la Orquesta Sinfónica de Guanajuato y profesora de la Universidad de Guanajuato.
- Jonathan Wilson, Corno Principal de la Orquesta Sinfónica de Aguascalientes y profesor de la Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas.
- Daniel Flores, Corno Principal de la Orquesta Sinfónica de Xalapa y profesor del Instituto Superior de Música del Estado de Veracruz.
- Keith Eitzen, Corno Segundo de la Orquesta Sinfónica de Xalapa y profesor de la Universidad Veracruzana.
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clockwise from the top left:
Claire Hellweg, Jonathan Wilson, Daniel Flores, Keith Eitzen |
La anfitriona de IHS 54, Jennifer Sholtis, se puso en contacto con nosotros para organizar la participación de México en el simposio. Claire y yo hablamos primero sobre tocar piezas para corno y piano. Luego sugirió agregar algunos amigos para tocar el cuarteto de Chávez. Yo no conocía la obra, pero pronto habíamos desarrollado todo un programa de temática mexicana.
Nuestro recital abrirá con Jonathan interpretando la Rapsodia Bambuco No. 3 Op 6 No. 2 del compositor y cornista colombiano/mexicano Gabriel Soto Méndez. Gabriel es mejor conocido como el arreglista de versión de Bésame Mucho grabado por los cornistas de la Filarmónica de Berlín.
Daniel interpretará una nueva obra del compositor xalapeño Rodrigo Lomán titulada Ariles de aguas profundas, música en el estilo tradicional de Son Veracruzana.
Claire continúa con el estreno de Scherzo para trompa y piano del compositor guanajuatense Javier Compeán, cuya música ha sido interpretada en Italia, Alemania, Rusia, España, Francia y toda América Latina.
Concluiré la primera parte con En el único lugar, una pieza de inspiración brasileña del compositor y pianista de jazz Edgar Dorantes.
Le sigue la Sonata para 4 Cornos de Carlos Chávez. El desafiante cuarteto fue escrito en 1929 y ahora está agotado. Jonathan nos hizo partichelas a partir de una fotocopia de la partitura. La obra fue muy difícil para el primer corno antes del uso de discantes y cornos triples, y Chávez luego hizo una versión más simple para 4 cornos y orquesta, donde le dio algunas líneas complicadas de los
cornos a los instrumentos de alientos madera. Es un excelente cuarteto y merece ser tocado más a menudo.
Y para completar el programa le pedimos a nuestro amigo Alfonso Cosme, Corno Co-Principal de la Orquesta Filarmónica del Estado de Querétaro, que nos arreglara tres canciones tradicionales mexicanas. Conociendo todo el potencial del corno, Poncho escribió versiones locas de la Malagueña Salerosa (la versión grabada por la banda Chingón), La Llorona y la melodía oaxaqueña Pinotepa.
Estamos encantados de poder compartir la rica cultura musical de México y esperamos ver a muchos de ustedes en Kingsville.
