The end of the semester is usually packed with concerts of all shapes and sizes, and this evening I’ll be involved with two different horn ensembles on the same concert. The first ensemble is Les Cors de la Louisiane, a horn quartet made up of professional players and university teachers from Louisiana. You can follow the link for more information on this group and horn quartet playing in general, but in short I highly recommend the horn quartet as a viable brass chamber group. Thanks to groups like the American Horn Quartet and Quadre-The Voice of Four Horns (and many others), horn quartets now have a wide variety of new as well as traditional repertoire. Plus, it’s lots of fun! Here’s our half of the program for the concert.

• Entrance Fanfare, Robert Dickow
• Quartet in B-flat, F.C. Homilius
• Three Movements for Four Horns, Kerry Turner
• Fugue in C minor, J.S. Bach/arr. Lowell E. Shaw

It should be an exciting program, and we’ll be repeating it the following evening (Thursday) at Centenary College in Shreveport. For the Centenary College program we’ll be adding Five Miniatures by C.D. Wiggins and several madrigals arranged by Marvin Howe.

The other half of the program here will feature the Northeast Louisiana Horn Ensemble.  Now in its fifth season, the ensemble is composed of current ULM music students, community members, and area high school students. I really enjoy getting to work with students and other horn players in this format, and it’s a great opportunity for me to work on my conducting skills! Here’s our program.

• Hunting Scene from The Moldau, Smetana/arr. G. E. Holmes
  
• Music from Silverado, Broughton/arr. Steven Mahpar
• Panis Angelicus, Franck/arr. Leigh Martinet
• In These Delightful, Pleasant Groves, Purcell/arr. Marvin Howe
• My Lord, What a Mornin’, Traditional/arr. Steven Mahpar
• Motown Hijackers, Jukka Harju
• Pie Jesu, from Requiem Faure/arr. Ken Bell
• Frippery No. 8, Barbershop, Lowell E. Shaw

Of particular note in this list is the music from Silverado, a great but challenging arrangement for 10 horns and tuba, and Motown Hijackers, by Finnish hornist Jukka Harju. This unique piece is from the new publication YouPlay!, and includes a play-along accompaniment CD. One of my students will also be guest conducting, which is always a good opportunity to pursue whenever you have the chance. Conducting forces you to listen more closely to an entire ensemble, and can really help solidify musical and technical concepts.

If you are in the Monroe or Shreveport area, feel free to come out and enjoy an evening of music for horns!   The Monroe concert is at 7:30pm tonight in the Emy-Lou Biedenharn Recital Hall at the University of Louisiana at Monroe, and the Shreveport concert is at 7:30pm on Thursday in the Hurley Music Building at Centenary College.