by Annie Rizzo

Monteux School class of 2026

As the summer ends and school years resume, I have been reflecting on my recent experience at the Monteux School. I found the season between my undergraduate and graduate degrees to be one of transition as I continue to step into leadership roles and work to gain mastery, both mentally and physically, over my craft.

At the Monteux School, I had the opportunity to play over 40 pieces of orchestral literature, many of which I already knew from excerpt study, as well as some chamber music. I greatly appreciated the opportunity to work under new conductors, hear new ideas, and gain experience in performing such a large amount of repertoire. I rotated through all four horn parts in the orchestra seating in addition to playing Strauss’s Serenade Op. 7 as well as in a brass quintet. Each experience gave me something different to listen for and to apply to my own skill sets. 

For me, the most enjoyable orchestral performance was Strauss’s Don Quixote. Hearing the story come to life through Strauss’s themes was especially rewarding, and the cello and viola solos were each beautifully performed by potential future colleagues. There is something truly exciting about experiencing music that has such a prominent place in the horn repertoire from a performer’s chair in the orchestra.

While I began the summer excited about building technique, expanding repertoire, and becoming a stronger horn player, I think the greatest thing I took from the experience was a renewed sense of purpose. It is a great gift to be able to bring performances into the everyday lives of our patrons. Much of the local community attended the sold-out performances, and they left wonderfully entertained. Knowing that we as players have the ability to communicate through music is my why.

It is easy to become so focused on the next audition, the next excerpt, the next lesson, or the next technical challenge that we can forget why we are doing all these things in the first place. This experience reminded me that the pursuit of musical excellence is bigger than I am and meant to bring joy to many others.

Yes, our work is about technique and mechanics, but I think it is also about the mindset of joyful music-making. More than anything, I am taking with me a renewed sense of purpose and a greater understanding of my why as I step into the next chapter of my professional training.

Details

Prizes: $1250.00 for each division
Deadline: entries must be received by December 1, 2026
Questions: email Matthew C. Haislip, Coordinator

Read in Spanish

by Christian Morabito (translator of the book Song and Wind into Spanish)

Like every brass player, I had a pretty rough time when I started playing the horn as discomfort was a constant companion. All that changed when I met my mentor in Argentina, Jorge Ramírez Álvarez (former bass trombonist with the OFBA), who, almost unconsciously, introduced me to this wonderful approach of Song and Wind. Suddenly, everything felt like magic. I began to play my instrument not only with a much better and fuller sound, but also in a much more comfortable and simple way. But it wasn't magic—it was logic!

After listening to and watching YouTube videos of the great Charles Vernon (bass trombonist with the Chicago Symphony), I discovered, after a phone call, that what Jorge had taught me in Argentina was 100% Jacobs, since he had studied in Boston in the 1970s, and at that time "everyone was studying with Jacobs.”

From that moment on, and thanks to fate, I immersed myself in this approach, following it rigorously 100%, studying, researching, translating, and subtitling interviews with former students of Arnold Jacobs on the TubaPeopleTV channel of Michael Grose, professor of tuba and euphonium at the University of Oregon and a student of Jacobs for 17 years, his colleague and personal friend.

Arnold Jacobs, tubist with the Chicago Symphony for 44 years and a well-known educator, who, having studied physiology, psychology, and philosophy for most of his life, demystified many issues related to our minds and bodies while playing brass instruments. He also helped many singers as well as some woodwind instrumentalists.

Jacobs spoke of neuroplasticity in the 1970s when the term hadn't even been coined, saying that the brain changes shape according to our thoughts.

"Telling a story with sound for someone else" has been the leitmotif of his teaching, focusing on the desired end product rather than the methodology of how to achieve it.

…

by Katy Carnaggio

The sun here doesn’t rise; it blooms, covering my porch with petals of warm, dappled light. My cat, Lucy, stretches across the wood, soaking up the glow. Even my phone beams while it listens to the dawn chorus unfolding around us and tells me which birds are singing.

The propaganda is working. For one curated hour, I live in a storybook, and the rest of the day has yet to prove otherwise.

The bird identification app brightens the screen with a picture of a Blue Jay. I lean in, marveling. He’s the kind of fairy-tale blue that stops you mid-step when it flashes through the trees. The kind that dances with princesses in Disney movies. I tap into the app. It’s decided. He’s what mornings should sound like.

Before I can match song to singer, a loud squawk cuts through my concentration. Half squeaky hinge, half old-fashioned bicycle horn, wholly offensive. I shift uncomfortably. The Blue Jay lights up the screen again.

Oh.
Oh no.

“How can a bird so beautiful sound so ugly?” I ask Lucy. She dismisses me with a thump of her fluffy tail. The Blue Jay screams at the sky. Morning routine is now a situation. So I start reading.

This does not help his case.

He’s cousins with crows, but he’s dressed for a storybook. So you wouldn’t guess he’s a corvid, a family famous for its ominous black birds and intelligence. Acorns are one of his favorite snacks. He buries and tracks them by the thousands with remarkable accuracy. After the ice age, he helped grow entire forests. Except “tiny hero” easily reframes as "misplaced a continent’s worth of trees” without knowing his family business.

Even scientists misunderstood him. He wears the color blue without owning a single blue pigment. Like the sky, or so they believed for roughly a century. Until someone looked closer and finally saw the truth: a precisely configured feather architecture.

I set down my coffee, catching a faint outline of an idea. My eyes move back over the line. Slower this time.

Oh!

It’s the physics hornists already know by feel.

What seems singular can be broken into measurable parts. White light emitted by the sun contains a spectrum of wavelengths. A rainbow folded into one beam. A single horn tone contains a spectrum of frequencies: the fundamental and overtones, a harmonic series blended into one sound.

Then, architecture determines perception. When white light enters the Blue Jay feather, the nanoscale structure scatters pieces of the whole, sending blue wavelengths back toward you, while remaining wavelengths pass through and are absorbed. Feather structure organizes light into perceived blue without being blue.

Musicians want to do something remarkably similar.

“That passage,” the conductor says, lowering his baton with the exquisite, wounded patience of a man who believes he’s the only one here who’s ever truly heard music. “It's correct. All the notes are there. But it gives me nothing. I need you to play it with more feeling. I want to hear your soul in it. I want longing. I want the ache of everything you've ever lost.”

And you, who have been counting rests for the better part of forty minutes and whose soul was at that moment mostly occupied with a parking meter expiring at four o'clock, nod thoughtfully. You look at the part. You look back up.

“Sure,” you say. “Louder or softer?” Because the audience never receives your feeling. Only your sound.

by Inman Hébert

Debates never cease as to the reasons for the increased costs for attending institutes of higher education. The reality often lies in a synthesis of ideas, whether inflation, a decline in public funding, the expansion of administrative roles and student support services, or the creation of amenities to attract families who will pay full freight for modern aesthetics. Colleges and universities often adopt business models seeking to balance the budget and preserve their institutions.

With higher tuition, many students enter this new landscape as a consumer with a sense of entitlement. Students may shop classes avoiding the hint of any professors who might set high expectations. Professors often get caught in the middle, navigating competing interests. The current system incentivizes acquiescing to the demands of easier course designs, soft deadlines, extra credit, and lax attendance policies, creating less work for all so that everyone moves on as a satisfied customer.

From 1990 to 2020, the U.S. Department of Education reports the average college GPA rose more than 16 percent, with an even more extreme trend present at elite institutions. Are students better prepared? Are universities lowering standards? Or has education become transactional, and are we complicit?

Recently, Harvard reignited a long-standing debate about our academic rating systems and their value. On May 20, 2026, faculty at Harvard University approved a new policy that limits the number of “A’s” they can award in an undergraduate course to 20 percent of enrolled students in their effort to prevent grade inflation and encourage academic performance.

Perhaps grade point average no longer reflects the best measure of engagement and does a great disservice to the academic process. Relishing the unique opportunities of being surrounded by genuine experts in the field and learning from their proficiency defies simple quantification.

In a world filled with tension and often defined by profits, higher education should devote more time to enhancing an environment that expands the possibilities of knowledge and recognizes moments impossible to measure and assess. As music students, the onus lies with us to embrace educators as part of this larger intellectual and professional journey.

Become an IHS Area Representative

Do you want to have greater involvement in promoting the International Horn Society in the USA? and do you live in one of these states: Alaska, Arkansas, Hawaii, lowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Texas (South), Vermont, or Wisconsin? Join our team!

Contact Jennifer Sholtis at jennifersholtis@tamuk.edu with any questions about filling a vacancy, and scan or click the QR code below to apply:

by Layne Anspach

For the next year, CMC will look at trios for horn, piano, and another instrument that is not violin. The first work to review is Gary Kulesha’s Sonata for horn, tuba, and piano (1975). Gary Kulesha (b. 1954) is one of Canada’s leading composers, but he is also a conductor, pianist, and educator. He has been the Composer in Residence for the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Orchestra and the Canadian Opera Company, then from 1995 to 2022, he was Composer Advisor for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Kulesha joined the faculty at the University of Toronto in 2000. He was appointed a member of the Order of Canada in 2023. An extensive biography can be found on his website, kulesha.com.

The sonata was commissioned by Gary Pattison and Scott Irvine. The premiere took place at Walter Hall in Toronto with the composer at the piano. The work, following the form from its title, comprises three movements arranged in a fast-slow-fast configuration. The first movement begins with a two-measure motif that gives way to the first theme. The motif, technical and agile, can be heard throughout the movement. After each brass instrument plays the theme, a contrasting second theme is introduced by the horn. The melodies are developed in turn, altering both rhythm and motif. The movement comes to a brilliant finish, repeating the opening measure of the first theme.

The second movement begins with a syncopated pulse joined by a slow melody, both introduced by the piano. In tandem, horn and tuba also play the melody. The rhythmic pulse remains ever-present but is passed between all members of the ensemble. The movement closes as it opens, with piano alone. The third movement, labeled “As fast as possible,” returns to the technicality required in the first movement. A frantic eighth-note pattern is heard in the piano, paired with an aggressive brass melody. The intensity dissolves into a serene contrasting section characterized by lyrical lines without the eighth-note pattern. The initial section rounds off the work for an exhilarating close.

James Naigus is the hornist in the reference recording.

by Peggy DeMers

This past July 22-26, the 18th Annual Midwest Alphorn Retreat welcomed Alphorn enthusiasts from across the United States for a time of music, learning, and interaction at the Franciscan Life Center in Lowell, Michigan. Founded in 2009 by John and Christine Griffith, the retreat provides a unique opportunity to explore the traditions of Alphorn playing through rehearsals and performances with instruction led by Dr. Peggy DeMers and William Rose. Shared meals, evening chamber music, and lively conversations created the warm sense of community that has become a hallmark of the retreat.

Educational presentations enriched the week, blending scholarship with experience. Dr. DeMers presented Echoes Across the Alps: Swiss Yodeling and the Alphorn, William Rose explored the relationship between the Alphorn and its echo, Scott Myckowiak and William Rose discussed instrument purchase and maintenance, and Dr. Jan Solberg shared the latest research on focal dystonia and its treatment for musicians.

The week concluded with two memorable performances. An informal staff concert featured chamber music for flute, viola, harp, piano, penny whistle, Wagner tubas, and a spirited Alphorn trio with banjo and train whistles. Participants then presented the culmination of their week's work in a public concert at the Grand Rapids Public Museum, leaving with new musical skills, lasting friendships, and a deeper appreciation for the rich traditions of the Alphorn.

by Caiti Beth McKinney

Hello all!

I was going through my lists of composers I have already featured in this Horn and More column and was completely baffled to discover that I have not yet written about one of my all-time favorite composers, Emilie Mayer (1812-1883). I am convinced that Mayer is the missing orchestral link between Beethoven and Brahms (in a time where the symphony as a genre was supposedly extinct), and her eight symphonies, multiple overtures, and extensive collections of lieder are not to be missed. In a somewhat common story for women composers of this period, Mayer was well-known and respected during her lifetime, especially throughout Germany, but her legacy was almost lost after she died.

If you check the programs of major symphony orchestras in the USA this season, you’ll actually see Mayer’s Faust Overture, Op. 46 appearing more and more frequently (it’s always a win). The piece starts with a menacing line in the low strings and bassoons which is quickly picked up by the higher strings. The work demonstrates Mayer’s mastery of both orchestration and counterpoint throughout, culminating in my favorite moment of the piece: a soaring brass chorale resounding over a running ostinato in the basses and strings, creating a feeling of grandeur and lushness that one looks for in a Romantic Era composition.

However, I would encourage all of you not to stop your listening at this short, albeit excellent, overture. Mayer’s remaining six symphonies (two are believed to be lost) have now been professionally recorded and together they tell a story of a rapidly developing and progressing composer. All eight were written in an eleven-year span between 1845 and 1856 and show in real-time the development of Germanic Romanticism. I particularly enjoy Mayer’s Symphony No. 7 in F Major, but you really can’t go wrong with a single one.

Happy listening!

by Manolo Pérez, Spanish Brass

Through the pedagogical aspect of my work, giving masterclasses in many parts of the world, I can see that the level of students is constantly rising. But I also see that many people still have what we might call fundamental problems. One of these is breath control.

Often, players do very strange things to be able to play, and they aren't even aware of it, but I don’t believe this should be the case. I often compare breath control to what string instrumentalists do. Players work for months, even years, on bow control—pressure, placement, continuity of movement—all to achieve technical consistency and, above all, good sound quality. For us brass players, the bow movement would be the breath column. And we should give it the same importance: striving for the most continuous and relaxed air column possible. When I say “relaxed,” I obviously don't mean that there is no muscular work involved. We have to use the diaphragm, the corners of the mouth, and all the muscles necessary to play. But all that work should be at the service of the breath and not interfere with it.

If we have good control of the air column, many other things start to work better. We can achieve a good range, both low and high, we can produce a good sound, and we can also improve technical aspects such as intervals, large leaps, and lip trills. For example, many students tell me they have problems with staccato. Most of the time, they think the problem is with the tongue; but the real problem lies in how they are using the air. First, we must get the air to flow naturally and continuously, and then position the tongue. The tongue shouldn't be what controls the air or interrupts it. That is why I think it is very important to do very simple exercises, like trying to play a chromatic scale very slowly without making any unnecessary physical movements. Simply focus on letting the air out, on letting it flow, without changing the position of the throat and without doing anything strange with the mouth. Of course, everyone is different. Each person has a unique morphology, playing style, and physical characteristics. But precisely for that reason, I believe we should always look for the simplest and most natural way to play. When a student asks me what they need to do to hit high notes, improve their staccato, or execute a trill, they are probably asking one of the most common questions I hear worldwide. And my answer is always the same: control the air column. Practice very slowly, practice chromatic notes, and focus solely on making your breath continuous and natural. Don't try to solve every problem by doing something different with your throat, your mouth, or your posture. Control your breath first. From there, everything else will be much easier.

Plan Now for the 59th International Horn Symposium, June 2-6, 2027, in Miami

Richard Todd, Host

image credit: Moris Moreno