Horn choir concert to enhance holiday season

From forest to banqueting hall, autumn reverberates to the call of the horn.

“The hunting horn, forest horn and eventually valved horn ensembles have generated many fine compositions from such major composers as Schubert, Schumann and Mendelssohn,” observes Horn Choir director Douglas Hill, professor of horn in the School of Music.

The ancient tradition of the horn ensemble, dating back hundreds of years from French and Austrian hunt clubs, is finding new expression among a group of students at UW–Madison.

The Horn Choir owes its inception to Hill, who promptly established in upon his arrival on the faculty here in 1974. The following year the ensemble began its annual holiday concert in the Elvehjem Museum of Art. This year’s installment will take place on Saturday, Dec. 6.

The current choir consists of six undergraduate and nine graduate students working toward degrees in horn.

“Participation in an ensemble such as this provides the players with challenges that go far beyond their usual band and orchestral assignments,” Hill says. “Each performance part is quite involved and often very demanding, requiring extended amounts of playing with little or no rest, extremely high and low pitches, as well as many opportunities to play melodic passages and intricate rhythmic patterns far beyond the scope of their other ensembles.”

Horn Choir alumna Lin Foulk readily agrees.

“The music we played in Horn Choir was much harder because much of it was transcribed from string and woodwind parts. It was a terrific challenge that helped me grow as a horn player. We also had the opportunity to play instruments related to the horn: the natural horn, descant horn, Wagner tuba. I’m especially glad to have had that experience with the Wagner tuba because many large-scale romantic symphonies use it, and I feel better prepared to play them,” she says.

Still a dissertator at UW–Madison, Foulk currently teaches at Western Michigan State University. So enriching was her Horn Choir experiences in Madison that she is starting a similar ensemble in Kalamazoo.

Hill too says that he is learning a great deal from working with the choir.

“It gives me an opportunity to address issues of section playing that will directly influence students’ orchestral or band performances. It also allows me to work with private students on very substantial musical problems in a group format – it is quite informative to see how students interact to solve their mutual musical problems,” he says.

The 2003 concert will feature romantic compositions by Beethoven, Mahler, Schumann and Humperdinck, plus modern works by Steven Winteregg and Kerry Turner and a holiday fantasy.

The concert, which begins at 2:30 p.m., is free and open to the public. For more information, contact the Elvehjem at (608) 263-2246.