Department of
Music

Northwest Horn Symposium 2012

Featured Guest Artists

Douglas Hill served as Professor of Music-Horn at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1974 through the spring of 2011. Having been previously named an Emily Mead Baldwin-Bascom Professor in the Creative Arts, Hill was the recipient of the 2009 Chancellor's Distinguished Teaching Award. He is a Past President of the International Horn Society and was made an Honorary Member of the IHS in 2008. He performed and recorded extensively with the Wisconsin Brass Quintet and has played first horn with the Rochester Philharmonic, New Haven Symphony, New York City Ballet, Contemporary Chamber Ensembles of New York and Chicago, Aspen Festival Orchestra, Henry Mancini and Andy Williams Orchestras, and for 30 years with the Madison Symphony. Hill was an original member of the Spoleto Festival Brass Quintet and has performed with the Wingra Woodwind Quintet, and the New York and American Brass Quintets. Recognized as one of only 20 international horn performers to be included in Michael Meckna's book 20th Century Brass Soloists, Hill has appeared as soloist and clinician throughout the U. S., Germany, France, and China, including numerous international, national, and regional brass and horn workshops and symposia.

Douglas Hill's extensive publications include Collected Thoughts on Teaching and Learning, Creativity, and Horn Performance (2001), Extended Techniques for the Horn (1981/1996), Introducing the Instruments: Horn Home Helper (2005), more than 30 articles, scores of original compositions and pedagogical etude books, the educational video/DVD Hill on Horn, three solo recordings and a variety of orchestral and chamber ensemble recordings with the St. Louis Symphony, Aspen Festival Orchestra, and the Madison Symphony. Thoughtful Wanderings: Compositions by Douglas Hill, a recently produced double CD, features alumni, faculty, students, and staff of the UW School of Music performing well over two hours of Hill’s numerous and varied compositions.

Emeritus Professor Hill has served on the faculties of the Oberlin Conservatory, Aspen Music School, Conservatories of Music in Beijing and Shanghai, for the Asian Youth Orchestra, Wilkes College, University of South Florida, Sarasota Music Festival, Yale Summer School at Norfolk, the Orford Music Festival in Canada, and at the Kendall Betts Horn Camp. He recently served as the Wind and Brass Adjudicator and Coach for the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts and has served numerous times on adjudication panels for the Fischoff and the Coleman Chamber Music Competitions, as well as the Toulon (France) International Solo Horn Competition.

Bernhard Scully is currently the horn professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. There he is a member of the Illinois Brass Quintet, co-director of the Orchestral Repertoire Class, and teaches the Audition Preparation Class. He is currently on the faculty of the Kendall Betts Horn Camp and the Rafael Mendez Brass Institute as a member of the Summit Brass, and has been on the faculty of the Music Academy of the West and the Eastman School of Music. In 2011, Bernhard began the first ever Illinois Summer Youth Music Horn Week at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for pre-college horn players.

Previously Bernhard was a member of the Canadian Brass. With the group he performed the world over, recorded numerous CDs, and starred in a top-ranked music video. As a featured artist in the quintet he shared the stage and soloed with some of the world’s greatest symphony orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, and Toronto Symphony, National Arts Centre Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony, Vancouver Symphony, among many others. He gave master classes worldwide to thousands of students at many of the world’s premiere music schools. Since his departure, he has been fortunate to return and play on a number of occasions.

As a soloist, he is a regular featured artist at universities, workshops, conventions, and with prominent ensembles. Recent highlights include: performing Gunther Schuller’s Quintet for Horn and Strings with the Chamber Music Society of Minnesota; soloing with the Colorado Symphony, Palo Alto Philharmonic, Champaign-Urbana Symphony, and others; guest principal horn with Violon du Roy (Quebec City) on their most recent recording; performing with the Prairie Winds Wind Quintet at the Madeline Island Music Camp, WI; and being a featured soloist at the Mid-South, Northeast, and International Horn Conventions. He will also be a featured artist at the 2012 Southeast Horn Workshop and International Horn Convention in Denton, TX.

Bernhard has recorded The G. Schirmer Horn Collection, Volumes 1-3 published by Hal Leonard, which includes much of the standard literature for horn and piano. His new CD, Dialogues En Francais (French Music for Horn and Piano) will come out in early 2012.

Bernhard was principal horn with The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra where he was featured often as a soloist. In the SPCO he performed in Carnegie Hall, toured nationally, and internationally. He is a founding member of the Contrapunctus Bras Trio, a group whose mission it is to help under-funded school music programs and to expand the brass chamber music repertoire. He has performed often with the Chicago Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, and the Minnesota Orchestra.

Bernhard has received awards from many other organizations such as The National Foundation For The Advancement In The Arts, WAMSO, and The Distinguished Music Alumni Award from the University of Wisconsin-Madison for outstanding artistry. In 2009 Bernhard became the first classical brass player to win Minnesota’s prestigious McKnight Foundation Artist Fellowship. The Fellowship allowed him to give performances all over Minnesota and has provided funding for two recording projects.

He received his Bachelors Degree with honors at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, and his Masters Degree at the University of Wisconsin–Madison where he was a Paul Collins Wisconsin Distinguished Fellow. At the University of Wisconsin– Madison, he won the student concerto competition and performed as a member of the Madison Symphony and the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra. His principal teachers include Hermann Baumann, Kendall Betts, Douglas Hill, Roland Pandolfi, and Gail Williams.

His wife, Sarah, is a music therapist. They are proud parents of their daughters Eleanor and Abigail.

For more information about Bernhard, please visit his website at www.bernhardscully.com.

Mark Robbins is associate principal French horn with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, and also performs as principal horn with the Seattle Opera, including performing the horn calls for Wagner's Ring Cycle. When the Ring Cycle is not being performed in Seattle, he spends his summers in New York State with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, a full time summer orchestra at the Chautauqua Institute. He has been a featured soloist with the Seattle Symphony, and other orchestras on a number of occasions.  Also a frequent performer of chamber music, he has performed frequently with the Seattle Chamber Players. Formerly, he was a member of the Miami, Florida Philharmonic Orchestra, and has performed at the Spoleto, Tanglewood, and Olympic Music Festivals. He teaches horn in the Seattle area and is the horn coach for the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra. He graduated from Temple University in 1978 where he studied with Kendall Betts.