U.S. Army’s “Musical Ambassadors” Horn Quartet to Perform at UMaine
Contact: George Manlove at (207) 581-3756
ORONO — The United States Army Field Band is sending its special Horn Quartet to the University of Maine March 26 to help a group of UMaine horn players be all they can be.
While the public and other students are invited to the free recital and masterclass, at least six UMaine music students — two French horn players and members of a brass quintet — will get a little extra coaching afterwards, according to Richard Roper, assistant professor of trumpet.
The Army Horn Quartet is scheduled to play a free 30-40-minute concert, starting at 10:30 a.m. at Minsky Recital Hall on the Orono campus, and then students take to the stage to perform and be critiqued by the fulltime professional army musicians.
“It’s a great thing,” Roper says. “It’s a great chance for our students to make contact with people who are successful at what they are doing.”
The army horn quartet, which will use French horns on Friday, are part of the army’s official field band — “the musical ambassadors of the army,” as they are called — which travels throughout the nation and abroad performing concerts and working at no charge with school students.
The musicians are in the Bangor area next week to perform a full concert at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Herman High School, according to Roper, who went to college with one of the musicians.
The four musicians coming to the campus all have either bachelor’s or master’s degrees in music. One is a doctoral candidate in musical arts. They have played extensively around the world and, collectively, have been affiliated with organizations including the American Wind Symphony, La Orquesta Sinfonica del Estado de Mexico, the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra in Cape Town, South Africa, the Tulsa Philharmonic Orchestra, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the Shanghai Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra, the Monarch Brass, the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra and the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra.
Several have served as faculty or adjunct faculty members at American universities and have performed professionally.
They are appearing at UMaine at the invitation of Roper and UMaine French horn instructor Wanda Whitener, who has invited other French horn players from the community to participate on Friday.
The first part of the class will be a concert format, Roper says, “but I think it’s going to be pretty informal.”
Roper says the army quartet will play selections from its wide-ranging repertoire, a spectrum of music representing different styles and periods.
Students, staff, faculty and the public will be treated to some excellent entertainment, Roper says. “It will be a chance to hear some really good chamber music that’s played at this professional level,” he says.
Some of the music played by the full field band ranges from the eclectic jazz compositions of Chick Corea to the more contemplative classical themes of Handel, with Mozart, Henry Purcell and more modern composers in the mix.
If anyone thinks a French horn quartet might be a little confining, musically, with such a wide range of material, consider, says Roper, that the French horn is one of the more versatile instruments, able to handle a full-scale range of music.
“Why it works as a group,” he explains, “is the French horn has the highest range of all the brass instruments — soprano, tenor, alto and bass.”
Minsky Recital Hall is in the Class of 1944 Building.