Although there are still a few days left before my semester begins, I am officially cranking the blog back up for 2011!  I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season, and I wish you all the best in your endeavors for this year.  2011 promises to be an exciting and busy year, with a number of horn-related activities in the works.  Here’s a brief summary of some upcoming events, through the month of March.

January 15: Chamber Arts Brass Trio performance at the Big XII Trombone Conference, Texas Tech University

February 19: Horn Quartet Performance at Northwestern State University of Louisiana

February 22: Chamber Arts Brass Trio Recital

March 4-6: Southeast Horn Workshop, Appalachian State University

March 22: Faculty Recital, Music for Horn and Guitar

Additional performances with the Monroe and Rapides Symphony Orchestras.

I’ll be posting more about these events in the future, but two events which I’m particularly excited about are the Southeast Horn Workshop, where I’ll be performing a newly written piece for solo horn by William Withem, an old college classmate, and now an established composer.  Later that month I’ll be collaborating with guitarist Daniel Sumner for a recital of music for horn and guitar.  Horn and guitar is an unusual combination, and there is some really cool music for this instrumentation.  We also hope to premier on this recital a new piece for horn, guitar, and piano by Mel Mobley, Associate Professor of Theory and Composition at ULM.

To close out this first post of 2011 I’ll share an inspiring story I recently heard about on NPR.  The story, titled “Amid Unrest, Juarez Symphony Orchestra Plays On,” opens with this line.

It’s been a rough couple of years in Juarez. Known as the murder capital of Mexico, Juarez is plagued by drug-related violence and organized crime. A quarter of the population is estimated to have fled, and thousands of businesses have closed. This year, the city even canceled its Independence Day celebration for the first time ever.

But the Juarez Symphony Orchestra plays on to grateful audiences that choose violins as a refuge from violence.

The article is well written, and yet another testament to the power of the arts to uplift and empower in even the most difficult of situations.