The morning concert is offered by the Pennsylvania Quintet, a woodwind quintet out of, well, Pennsylvania. There run through a number of classical and non-classical works. Perhaps my favorite of the lot is "Four 2-bit contraptions", a flute and horn duet performed by Eleanor Duncan Armstrong, flute, and Lisa Bontrager, horn. A very pleasant way to start the morning.

The second morning session is a lecture and recital of the works of Bernhard Krol. I had not been familiar with his works before this conference, but his writing is both in the modern style but in a tonal manner. The Eastman Horn Choir makes a return with "Rendezvous San Marco for Twelve Horns"; Johnny Pherigo, Editor of the Horn Call, makes his first appearance on natural horn with "Moment Musical for Natural Horn", and Douglas Hill performs "Laudatio for Solo Horn." Other works include "Cantico for Horn and String Quartet," Froydis Ree Werke, horn; "Horati di vino Carmina", for soprano, horn, and piano, Gregory Hustis, Horn; and, finally, "Taugenichts Suite for Six Horns," [Betts, Cochran-Block, Hill, Virginia Thompson, Ohno, Bontrager]. Between all the playing, Mr. Krol explains the thoughts behind each of these works via a translator. It adds significantly to the experience.

Lunch follows and I take advantage of the time to play some sextets and octets with a group that has formed in one of the rooms down- stairs. I try to stick to the low parts, but someone sticks me on the first part on a Bach work and it's time to force the high Bb's out for all they're worth. In this case, not quite $0.02 ;-)

The afternoon recital has hit a bit of a snag .. the visa office in Prague has hung up the process for one of the artists for that day, Radek Baborak. In his place, the indominatable Hans Piska steps in on extremely short notice and does a fine job with several works that I fail to write down (n.b. - I later get the works from Hans - J.R.Lewy: "Divertissement upon themes de Schubert op.13", Heinrich Proch: "Song without words op.163" & Ignaz Lachner: "Nocturno op.37". ) . Later in the day I will flag down Hans in a corridor at which point he exclaims, "you're the man," no doubt in reference to the internet stuff. He tells me of a project where he is putting his reference works on Mozart and others onto CDs, including video and audio clips. It sounds pretty worthwhile. As many people have reported, Hans is quite a different individual in person than you might otherwise expect.

Also on the afternoon program is Lowell Greer on natural horn. I had never really given much thought to the natural horn as a performance instrument, but the skill with which Mr. Greer approaches the instrument forces me to reconsider my position. The opening number is a octet which Mr. Greer has composed. It comes off quite well, especially considering the technology being used!

After this concert it's time for the first massed horn choir rehearsal. An interesting phenomenom develops; people are allowed to sit themselves, and of course there's the usual mob on 1st (there are eight parts to this music). More surprising is that there are more people on eighth than there are on first (including your writer). The leader for the "A-K" group is William Capps, horn instructor at Florida State. He does a pretty good job of getting the 70-80 horns to pay attention and actually make music of the two works we get to rehearse the first day. The main problem is that a lot of people still don't know what "ppp" means. I think the people in front of me to the left think it means "percussive - percussive - percussive." Oh, well.

Dinner follows, then a informal concert in the promenade by the Cincinatti College-Conservatory Horn Choir. They play a number of the standard horn works and do a fine job with it.

The evening program, then, is a dual concert offering David Jolley and Francis Orval. Jolley starts with "Three Pieces from the Notebook of Anna Magdalena Bach" and does a fine job. He then continues with an enjoyable modern work, "le monde miniscule for Solo Horn," by Daniel Schnyder. The various movements are entitled things like "la danse du microbe," "l'insecte at la pachiderme," and so forth and are very much what you might expect, given the titles. The only movement I don't get is entitled, "e-mail." Hmm ..

David Orval makes his first appearance in a performance of the Brahms "Trio in E-flat Major, op. 40." I think they do a fine job, although some people I talk to later will make snide remarks about the violinist. After intermission, Jolley takes on the extremely hard "Arpeggione" Sonata by Franz Schubert. This piece is incredibly high, with many repeated high Bb's (at least) throught the three movements. Jolley shows he's human when a case of chop fade sets in, leaving behind a trail of cracked notes and a somewhat airy tone in the upper register. This means he only plays it about 5500% better than I could, instead of 6000% better.

Orval closes the concert with Alec Wilder's "Sonata #3 for Horn and Piano," another modern work which is listenable. He does very well by the work. I head back to the dorm, where I finally find the computer lab and rip off a very quick note. I then head back to find the group that says they were going to be playing tonight; they're still just talking, which is fine by me and I join them until about 1AM. Tuesday brings another day, and my presentation at the conference .. but that's another story.

Respectfully Submitted,
Your Roving Reporter, Ron