AMERICAN HORN QUARTET

by
Maryann Miller

Mount Vernon Music Hall is building a firm reputation for bringing amazing musical performances to this little corner of East Texas. There are a lot of venues in the area for country, folk, gospel, Americana, and other types of music more closely associated with rural living, and Mount Vernon Music is inviting people to stretch their musical tastes and sample something different.

That's what I did last Sunday when I went to the concert featuring four French horns. I went there not being a fan of brass instruments and left with a totally different attitude. The quartet, comprised of David Johnson, Kerry Turner, Charles Putnam, and Geoffrey Winter, is amazing. Kerry, who is the official spokesman for the group at concerts, said that they have been playing and performing together for 20 years. "We started with the hope that we could raise the horn ensemble into the higher echelons of chamber music."

Kerry, (standing) who is originally from San Antonio, is currently the associate principal horn of the Luxemburg Philharmonic. Graduate of the Manhattan School of Music in New York. Prize winner at the International Horn Competition in New York and Prague. As a composer, he has been awarded top prizes by the International Horn Society as well as being awarded a Fulbright scholarship.

Several of the pieces at the recent concert were composed and/or arranged by Kerry, and he had a funny story about "Barbara Allen". "History is not clear on exactly where the original melody for this piece was written," he said. "According to people in England, it was written there. But according to people in Massachusetts, it was written there. Maybe it really was written on a boat somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic."

It was amazing at the different sounds that came from what is basically the same instrument as one horn overlapped another, and sometimes the effect was soft and haunting. That was especially true of the second movement of Kerry's "Three Movements for Four Horns."

The third movement of that piece brought to mind the Disney version of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" from Fantasia. I could imagine the musical notes pouring out of these horns and dancing off the stage while Mickey Mouse tries to sweep them up, the same way he tried to mop up the water in Fantasia.

The concert hall was filled that afternoon, and a number of young people from the Mount Vernon high school band were in the audience, as were local musicians.

After an intermission, the quartet did three pieces, "Sinfonia 11" by Bach, "Intuitions" by Kazimierz Machala, and "Carmen Suite" by Goerges Bizet. Kerry Tuner did special arrangements of "Carmen Suite" and "Sinfonia 11", and he said of the latter that he did that arrangement after hearing a vocal performance. "I decided that whatever singers can do, horn players can do better," he said.

While Kerry took center stage in terms of interacting with the audience, he was by no means "center stage" in the performance. The musicians blended so well that at times it was nearly impossible to tell which sound was coming from which horn. The entrances and exits of each were seamless, and it was obvious that they were very much in tune with each other.

Charles Putnam (L) is a member of the Beethoven Orchestra in Bonn, Germany. He has previously played with the Florida Orchestra in Tampa, and held the principal horn position in the Israel Sinfonietta chamber orchestra in Beer Sheva, Israel. He later took a position in Florence, Italy with the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and after his second season in Florence, left for Germany to play in the Gelsenkirchen Philharmonic before winning his current position with the Beethoven Orchestra in Bonn. Mr. Putnam also plays the natural horn, and he has toured internationally and recorded frequently with many prominent European baroque orchestras including Concentus Musicus Wien, Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Musica Antiqua Koln.

David Johnson, (3rd from Left) teaches at the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano, Switzerland. He was a prize winner at the International Horn Competition and recipient of the Swiss Prize in Geneva and prize winner at the Chamber Music Competition in Narbonne. Mr. Johnson was formerly principal horn of the Berne Symphony, the Philharmonia Hungarica in Marl, Germany, the Radio Symphony Orchestra of Basel and the Niedersachsischen State Orchestra in Hannover.

Geoffrey Winter (R) is principal horn of the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn. He has won solo prizes at the International Horn Competition in Markneukirchen and at the ARD Music Competition in Munich. Mr. Winter began playing the horn at the age of 7, and studied with Vince Derosa, James Decker and Christopher Leuba. After holding the position of principal horn in the Municipal Symphonic Orchestra of Caracas, Venezuela, he moved to Europe. Mr. Winter's previous experience also includes many years on brass chamber music ensembles such as the Philharmonic Brass Quintet (Dusseldorf) and the Zephyr Brass Quintet.

This concert in Mount Vernon was the first of a two week tour. Here is the rest of the schedule, and more information can be found on their Web site

March 8: Mt. Vernon, Texas.
March 9: Commerce, Texas.
March 10-12: Austin, Texas.
March 13-15: Ithica, New York.
March 17-18: Columbia, South Carolina.
March 20-22: Memphis, Tennessee.

Charles Putnam, Kerry Turner, David Johnson, Geoffrey Winter