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Published: 19 March 2017

Douglas Hill – Jazz Mix for Two, Set 2

Jazz-Mix for 2, Set 2 is a light-hearted group of duets for horns that explore various jazz stylings not typically enjoyed by horn players. The arrangements of these original melodies are written with both parts sharing the tunes and harmonies equally.

Each duet deals with specific performance traditions.

Cha Cha Cha is a Cha Cha. It is also the first melody this composer can actually remember having created back in junior high school. The performance should be quite playful with even eighth notes, crisp staccatos, and a strong Latin dance-like feeling throughout.

Echo Horn Blues makes full use of an extended technique that distinguishes horns from all other instruments; the ability to bend the pitch with the right hand in the bell. Often called “echo horn”, the motion of covering with the hand should lower the pitch only a half-step. The effect is like the “do- wah” common to harmon mutes from trumpets and trombones. Enjoy!

Distant Dawn is a simple, lovely ballad which emphasizes the vibrant warmth of two horns singing together, sharing thoughtful, legato melodic lines and luscious sustained harmonies.

Faulty Waltz is a somewhat typical jazz waltz, notated in a compound meter to advocate for a swing feel. The cool quality and sassy use of dissonances weave through this duet. A few glissandi, aggressive articulations, and twos-over-threes, and fours-over-nines add to the fun.

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Published: 19 March 2017

Douglas Hill – Jazz Mix for Two, Set 1

Jazz Mix for Two, Set 1 is a light-hearted group of duets for horns that explore various jazz stylings not typically enjoyed by horn players. The arrangements of these original melodies are written with both parts sharing the tunes and harmonies equally.

Each duet deals with specific performance traditions.

Ramblin’ Rag is to be performed with even eighth notes, with a tendency toward shorter, accented syncopations, and a frolicking sense of fun.

Full Circle Blues gets down and dirty with a slow swing feel. It is notated in 12/8 to add to that lazy sensation. The full circle of fourths is the form of this somewhat unique 12 bar blues design.

Begin Again is to be felt as a beguine, or lightly laced Latin dance. The eighth notes are performed evenly with accents placed gently on the syncopations, as suggested, along with some lush, lyrical lines.

Swing’s the Thing harkens back to the swing era and that loping feel of nearly a compound meter. Added here is a “walking bass line”, and some additional fall-offs, glissandos, and smears.

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Published: 16 January 2017

The International Horn Society is pleased to announce that Elaine Braun has been appointed by unanimous vote of the IHS Advisory Council as the society's first Membership Coordinator. Her official responsibilities will begin as soon as possible. Elaine has a long history with the IHS, serving in several capacities, as well as numerous administrative experiences with musical organizations in support of her new duties. We congratulate Elaine on this appointment and look forward to working with her in this new capacity.

Jeff Snedeker
President, IHS

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Published: 05 January 2017

Jacobus Handl Gallus– Alleluia, Cantate Domino for 12 horns (arr. Jeffrey Snedeker) has been added to the IHS Online Music Sales.

Alleluia, Cantate Domino is from a huge collection of sacred music by Jacobus Handl Gallus, a late Renaissance Slovenian composer who spent his whole life in Moravia and Bohemia. Gallus effectively mixed the polyphonic style of the Franco-Flemish School with the antiphonal style of the Venetian School. He composed over 500 works in both sacred and secular genres, mostly music for voices up to 24 parts. Opus musicus, the collection from which this piece is taken from, is his most notable work, consisting of 374 motets that covered the liturgical needs of an entire ecclesiastical year. Alleluia, Cantate Domino is for 12 voices is organized in three four-voice SATB choirs, and shows clear influence by the Venetian cori spezzati technique. This arrangement was transcribed and edited by Jeffrey Snedeker.

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Published: 14 November 2016

Douglas Hill – A Place for Hawks for mezzo-soprano, horn, and strings

https://www.hornsociety.org/marketplace/online-library#!/Hill-Douglas-–-A-Place-for-Hawks-for-mezzo-soprano-horn-and-strings/p/75018308/category=21024120

August Derleth (1909-1971) was one of Wisconsin’s most prolific authors and poets with more than 150 published books of fiction, poetry, Wisconsin history, biography, science fiction, mystery, and short stories. His creative output more often than not derived its inspiration from his town and area of birth and life-long residence, Sauk City. The natural surroundings of these rolling hills and Wisconsin River bottoms were beautifully expressed in hundreds of his poems and much of his prose.

The four poems selected for A Place for Hawks set the poet/singer near the still and silent woods, in awe of its darkened depths during the cold of winter, wishing at once to go in and yet called by unseen walls that “only sight could breach.” This uncertain solitude is suddenly disturbed by a frightening and fantastic encounter with “the great bird” as he flies near and shares a brief moment of eye contact before reentering the “darkness of the winter wood.” The third poem finds the poet/singer virtually soaring with a “hawk on the wind.” Having moved beyond the darkness and uncertainty of primal nature, the poet/singer finds kinship and ecstasy simply watching as the hawk floats, circles, vaults, and dives. The final poem sings warmly and optimistically of the coming of spring with its blossoms, birdsongs, and “birch with yellow catkins” shaking in the air. The poet/singer looks forward to a journey to the hills “far from village streets” where the “hawk flies high” and where the “earth of grass and tree” will surely provide “their strength again.”

Taken as a literal set of experiences or as a symbolic confrontation with one’s own nature, these poems, and the music which enhances their power and romantic simplicity, reach outward to touch a certain spirit which connects us all to the earth, grass, trees, and the joyful soaring of the hawk.

The composer wishes to thank “the Graduate School of the University of Wisconsin-Madison for its grant support which made the composition and preparation of this work possible.

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Published: 17 October 2016

October 17, 2016

IHS member Dr. Peter Iltis, horn player and Professor of Kinesiology at Gordon College, has launched a research project entitled the MRI Horn Repository Project (MHRP). In collaboration with the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry (Gottingen, Germany) and the Institute for Music Physiology and Musician’s Medicine (Hannover, Germany), this project utilizes real-time magnetic resonance imaging (RT-MRI) to study tongue and throat movement strategies of elite horn players and players who suffer from career-threatening movement disorders, with emphasis on embouchure dystonia (EmD). In the next two years, his research team aims to significantly expand its data base and to provide selective access to scientists, doctors, and brass teachers world-wide to further understanding in this new, developing field of study.

The project has already resulted in five journal publications, presentations at three international symposia dealing with medical problems of performing artists as well as horn pedagogy, an internationally-televised episode with Deutsch Welle Television (Sarah’s Music: Music and Science), and a YouTube channel “MRI Horn Videos: Pedagogy Informed by Science.” The YouTube channel features a growing series of video lectures highlighting the RT-MRI work in Germany. The lectures are presented by Dr. Iltis and Mr. Eli Epstein, former second horn of the Cleveland Orchestra, now serving on the faculty of the New England Conservatory and the Boston Conservatory at Berklee. These movies provide a valuable source for expanding the understanding of brass pedagogy. The lectures have Epstein presenting the pedagogical side, while Iltis presents the scientific side. Together, they provide a well-balanced and disciplined approach to understanding the amazing images. They have presented this work in two consecutive years at the International Horn Symposia held in Los Angeles (2015) and most recently at Ithaca College (2016).

Two significant testing sessions of the MHRP are planned for the next calendar year (January 2017-January 2018). During each 10-day session, 12 elite horn players from top European and American Orchestras will be recruited for scanning. The IHS Executive Committee enthusiastically supports this research project because of its application to many brass players and their problems. Inevitably, results will come more quickly with financial support, and we encourage those who possess the financial means to support this worthwhile project to visit http://www.gordon.edu/mrihorn for information regarding how to contribute.

Jeffrey Snedeker
President, International Horn Society