|
Roger Kaza/Horn
Roger Kaza rejoined the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra as Principal Horn in the fall of 2009, after 14 years with the Houston Symphony. He was previously a member of the SLSO horn section from 1983-95, and prior to that held positions in the Vancouver Symphony, Boston Symphony, and the Boston Pops, where he was solo horn under John Williams. A native of Portland, Oregon, he attended Portland State University, studying with Christopher Leuba, and later transferred to the New England Conservatory in Boston, where he received a Bachelor of Music with Honors in 1977 under the tutelage of Thomas E. Newell, Jr. Kaza’s musical activities are wide-ranging. The son of two musicians, growing up in a musical family, he received his early training on piano, giving two solo recitals on that instrument before concentrating on horn. He has studied composition with the Czech-American composer Tomas Svoboda, and conducting with Leonard Slatkin, Gunther Schuller, and Murry Sidlin. He conducted over 40 concerts with members of the Houston Symphony under the auspices of its Community Connections outreach program, giving concerts in schools, churches, homeless shelters, and retirement homes. As an educator, Kaza has served on the faculties of the University of Houston, Rice University, St. Louis Conservatory, University of Missouri-St. Louis, Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville, and has given master classes at the Eastman School, Juilliard School, Indiana University, University of Michigan, and many others. Students from his years of teaching fill orchestral positions worldwide, including principal players in major U.S. symphonies, and chamber groups such as the Canadian Brass. In addition, he has been engaged as guest artist and performer for the International Horn Society at international and regional conferences. He is the writer/producer/performer of the instructional CD, Audition: Improbable, and a contributor to the syndicated NPR radio show and podcast, Engines of Our Ingenuity. Kaza has appeared as soloist with many orchestras, including the St. Louis, Vancouver, and Houston symphonies, and the Carlos Chavez Chamber Orchestra in Mexico City. A frequent chamber musician as well, he has performed at numerous summer venues, including the Bravo! Vail Valley Festival, Chamber Music Northwest, Mainly Mozart, and the Aspen and Marrowstone festivals. He presently serves as instructor of horn at the Chautauqua Institution’s Music School, where he is also Principal Horn of the Chautauqua Symphony. An avid bicyclist, hiker, and whitewater rafter, Kaza is especially fond of the horn in its “original” setting: out-of-doors. A performance of Olivier Messiaen’s “Interstellar Call,” from his suite From the Canyons to the Stars, recorded at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, was personally critiqued by the composer shortly before his death in 1992. |
|
Thomas Jostlein/ Horn
Thomas Jöstlein has been the Associate Principal Horn of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra since 2010. Previously, he was the New York Philharmonic's Assistant Principal Horn under Lorin Maazel. He was on three major tours, including the historic live broadcast from North Korea (2008). He has held positions with the Honolulu, Omaha, Richmond, and Kansas City Symphony Orchestras, and performed in the Brevard, Napa Valley, Classical Tahoe, Britt, and Eastern Music Festivals, among others. Jöstlein loves spreading the lessons of his mentors: Arnold Jacobs, Roger Rocco, and William VerMeulen. He was Assistant Professor of Horn at the University of Illinois, taught several weeks at Indiana University in 2014 in both natural and un-natural (valved) horn, and has held adjunct positions at Saint Louis University, the University of Hawaii and at Virginia Commonwealth University. As a soloist, Jöstlein won first prize in the professional division of the American Horn Competition (2003), and the grand prize at the Hugo Kauder Music Competition at Yale University (2005), earning a recital at Merkin Concert Hall in NYC. He has appeared with the SLSO as a soloist on several occasions, playing Schumann's Concertstück for Four Horns and Orchestra and the Vivaldi Double Concerto with Chris Dwyer under Nicholas McGegan. He appears on several recordings, notably Tony Bennett’s Duets II album, along with his sister, Barbara Jöstlein Currie, Fourth Horn of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. On the natural (classical) horn, he has performed the Haydn D-Major concerto and the Brahms Trio with Stephanie Chase and Brian Connelly, and with the Boulder Bach Festival. Jöstlein performs on a triple horn by J. Patterson, on natural horns by R. Seraphinoff and L.J. Raoux (ca. 1820), and on a Vanon alphorn. He lives in University City with wife and fellow horn player, Tricia, and sons, Klaus and Max. |
|
Tod Bowermaster/Horn
Tod Bowermaster, a native of Ottawa, Illinois, is Third Horn of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, a position he has held since 1995. He served as Acting Assistant Principal in the 2008-09 season and Acting Principal for the 2002-2003 season. Bowermaster has appeared as a soloist with the orchestra on numerous occasions. He has also performed as a soloist with the Honolulu Symphony and the Sun Valley Summer Symphony, among others. Before his appointment to the SLSO, he was a member of the Honolulu Symphony and the Lyric Opera of Chicago Orchestra. He has also performed with the orchestras of Chicago, Houston, and San Francisco. In October of 2012, he was honored to be a member of the World Orchestra for Peace, performing at New York's Carnegie Hall and Chicago's Symphony Center under the direction of Maestro Valery Gergiev. Winner of the 1999 American Horn Competition and the 1982 Coleman Chamber Ensemble Competition, he continues to enjoy performing in both solo and chamber music settings. Bowermaster has been a regular participant in numerous chamber music festivals nationwide, including the Kapalua Music Festival on Maui; the Bay Chamber Concerts in Rockport, Maine; Summerfest in Kansas City; the Innsbruck Festival outside of St. Louis; Strings in the Mountains in Steamboat Springs, Colorado; and the Landmarks Society Chamber Concerts on the island of St. Croix. Bowermaster is in great demand as a teacher, having been invited to give recitals and master classes at Rice University, Illinois State University, Northern Illinois University, the Manhattan School of Music, and the University of Missouri. Recent teaching engagements have included being a guest professor with the horn class at Northwestern University and with the horn students at the Indiana University Summer Music Festival. Additionally he serves as lecturer of horn at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. When not playing the horn, he enjoys playing tennis, singing, and, most of all, family time. He resides in Kirkwood, Missouri, with his children, Kathryn and Ryan. |
|
Julie Thayer/Horn
Julie Thayer was appointed to the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra in May 2014. A native of Atlanta, she has previously held positions with the Houston Symphony and Harrisburg Symphony, and has been a regular guest with many others, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, Rochester Philharmonic, San Diego Symphony, Houston Grand Opera, and Atlanta Symphony. Most recently she was acting Fourth horn with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel, with whom she collaborated on multiple recordings and tours. Julie graduated from the Eastman School of Music, studying under Peter Kurau, and later worked with William Ver Meulen at Rice University's Shepherd School of Music. She was an inaugural recitalist at the Kennedy Center's Conservatory Series, and was a winner in the International Horn Society's 2004 orchestral competition. She has also been a frequent guest artist or participant at many summer festivals, including Sun Valley Summer Music Festival, Cabrillo Music Festival, Mainly Mozart, and La Jolla Summer Fest. Thayer plays a custom-made horn by Dan Rauch. |
|
Victoria Knudtson/Horn
Minnesota-born horn player Victoria Knudtson joined the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra as assistant/utility horn during the 2019/2020 season. Born to a pianist mother and singer father, Knudtson found her artistic voice on the horn when she was 16 years old after a coincidental meeting with her first teacher, Wayne Lu. In 2014, Knudtson began studying with Jeffery Nelsen at Indiana University. Thanks to the horn department at the Jacobs School of Music, she also benefited from the orchestral pedagogy of Dale Clevenger and studied early music performance on the natural horn with Richard Seraphinoff. Knudtson also spent six months in Vienna, Austria, studying with Wolfgang Vladar of the Vienna Philharmonic. While pursuing her undergraduate degree, she served as principal horn of the Columbus Indiana Philharmonic. She successfully completed her studies in December 2017. In March 2018, Knudtson joined the St. Louis Brass (a quintet started in 1964 by then-members of the SLSO) with whom she occasionally tours the country giving performances and teaching masterclasses. Knudtson began an artist diploma at the Curtis Institute of Music under Jennifer Montone and Jeffery Lang before winning the position with the SLSO in September 2019. While in Philadelphia, Knudtson held a core horn position with the ensemble Symphony in C, and performed frequently throughout the city with various chamber groups. As a soloist, she performed with the Indiana University Symphony Orchestra and the Yale New Music Ensemble, and frequently appeared in recitals on the Curtis stage. She ardently enjoys collaborating with composers and performing new music, especially with friends. Knudtson was a horn fellow of the Boston Symphony's Tanglewood Music Center in 2019, and at the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan with music director Valery Gergiev in 2018. Knudtson plays a leader/teacher roll as a staff member at Kendall Betts Horn Camp. When not on stage or in the practice room, Knudtson enjoys spending time outside, gardening, writing, and painting. |
|
Spencer Park/ Horn
Spencer Park currently plays third horn in the Houston Grand Opera and fourth horn in the Houston Ballet. He is an active freelancer throughout the country and has had guest principal horn appearances with the Oregon Symphony, San Antonio Symphony, and Houston Symphony, and is a frequent guest principal with the Houston Grand Opera and Ballet Orchestras. In addition, he has performed as a guest player with the Dallas Symphony, Naples Philharmonic, and North Carolina Symphony. A recent graduate of Rice University, Park received a Master of Music degree under the tutelage of William VerMeulen. |
|
Charley Ball Fuller/Horn
Charley Ball Fuller is a horn player from Bentonville, AR. He began his musical studies at age 8 on piano and played trumpet for two years before playing the horn at age 14. After studying at the Interlochen Arts Academy for his senior year of high school with Corbin Wagner, he attended the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music where he studied horn performance with Jeff Nelsen and Dale Clevenger, and where he graduated at the beginning of May with a BM in Horn Performance. |