Workshop Presenters

During his career, Mr. Durnin has worked for most of the top composers and arrangers in “The Industry,” including John Williams, Henry Mancini, Allen Silvestry, Pat Williams, Hoyt Curtin, Chris Young, John Debney, Grahame Revelle, Maurice Jarre, Jerry Goldsmith, Elmer Bernstein, Lalo Shifrin, Michael Giacchino, Tim Simonec, Kim Scharnberg, Ray Colcord, and many more.

Films that Steve has recorded for include JFK, Hook, Father of the Bride, The Incredibles, Far and Away, The Seige, Aliens, Species, Beethoven, Collateral Damage, Stop or My Mom Will Shoot, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Panther, and My Favorite Martian, just to name a few. His television credits include Hanna-Barbera cartoons, Brisco County Jr, Colombo, Dinosaurs, and Alias.

Steve Durnin has always been an active live performer. Included in the list of groups he performs with are: The Long Beach Symphony, The Pacific Symphony, The Pasadena Symphony, The Santa Barbara Symphony, The New West Symphony, The Long Beach Opera, The Riverside County Philharmonic, The Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra, The Pasadena Pops Orchestra, The San Luis Obispo Symphony, and The Capistrano Valley Symphony. Currently he is Principal Horn of the Oregon Coast Music Festival.

Steve was a finalist in The American Horn Competition in 1993, has been featured as an artist at the International Horn Society on three occasions, and is often sought as a recitalist/clinician at regional workshops.

His first solo project, Les Adeiux, was released in 2003 on the Summit label and was hailed by The Horn Call for “ fantastic playing…the level of musicality, nuance and artistry is not to be missed.” Equally at home in music of all periods, Ericson has made recordings with The Potsdam Brass Quintet, The Nashville Symphony, and other ensembles, including the Native American flutist R. Carlos Nakai on Fourth World, which was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2002. His second solo project, Canto, was released on the Summit label early in 2005.

Author of over 20 articles on the performance and history of the horn, Ericson has performed and presented sessions at three international horn symposiums and numerous regional horn events. An authority on the history of the early valved horn, his recent article, “Crooks and the 19th-Century Horn,” was awarded the Harold Meek award by the International Horn Society. Excerpts from his publications and other teaching materials may be found on his website.

Prior to joining the faculty at ASU, Ericson performed for six years in the Nashville Symphony and taught for three years at the Crane School of Music, SUNY College at Potsdam. As an orchestral player he has also been a member of the Evansville Philharmonic and the National Repertory Orchestra, has performed with ensembles including the Indianapolis Symphony and the Rochester Philharmonic, and has been active in recording studios. As a teacher he has also served on the faculties of Tunghai University in Taiwan, Western Kentucky University, and the Bay View Music Festival. As a chamber musician he has toured with the Potsdam Brass Quintet, performing on their critically acclaimed recording The Art of Brass, and has performed in ensembles of all types.

Dr. Barry Giesbrecht earned his BA in Psychology from the University of Waterloo (Ontario, Canada). Barry did his graduate work at the University of Alberta (Edmonton, Canada) under the supervision of Drs. Alan Kingstone and Walter F. Bischof and was funded by scholarships from Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the Killam Trust, and the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research.

After receiving his Ph.D. in 1999, Dr. Giesbrecht did a post-doctoral fellowship in the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at Duke University (Durham, USA) and was funded by awards from NSERC and the McDonnell-Pew Program in Cognitive Neuroscience. In 2002 Dr. Giesbrecht became a part of the research faculty in the Center for Mind & Brain at the University of California, Davis, where he remained until joining the UCSB faculty in July of 2004.

First-author publications include ”Methodological Issues in Timbre Research“ in Perception and Cognition of Music (Delige & Sloboda, Eds., Psychology Press, 1997) and "The Effect of Dynamic Acoustical Features on Musical Timbre" in Sound of Music: Analysis, Synthesis, and Perception of Musical Sounds (Beauchamp, Ed., Springer-Verlag, 2005).

(Photo courtesy of
Indiana University)

Michael Hatfield is Professor of Music and Chair of the Brass Department at the Indiana University School of Music in Bloomington. He earned the first Performer's Certificate in Horn ever granted by Indiana University under the tutelage of Verne Reynolds. During that time, Mr. Hatfield also studied at the Aspen Music Festival each summer with Christopher Leuba and Philip Farkas.

Upon graduation, he joined the Indianapolis Symphony. In 1961, he was appointed principal horn of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, a position he would hold for the next 23 years. While in Cincinnati, Mr. Hatfield also served as Adjunct Professor and Chair of the Brass, Woodwind and Percussion Division at the College-Conservatory of Music of the University of Cincinnati. He also was a member of the Cincinnati Woodwind Quintet with his other Principal players from the Cincinnati Symphony. Summers led him to return to Aspen, where he played second horn to Philip Farkas in the Aspen Festival Orchestra from 1960-68. In 1972, he became Co-Principal of that orchestra and joined the faculty of the Festival, positions he would hold until 1989.

Mr. Hatfield has since held summer positions as Principal horn of the Santa Fe Opera and as a faculty member of the Grand Teton Festival Institute, as well as performing with the Grand Teton Festival Orchestra. He joined the faculty at Indiana University in 1984, replacing his mentor, the legendary Philip Farkas, upon his retirement.

Michael Hatfield was a soloist at the International Horn Society Convention in 1983 and 1985, and is a current member of the Advisory Council.

A prize winner at the 1996 McMahon International Solo Competition, Laurence Lowe has established a national reputation as a horn soloist, orchestral player, and teacher. He has been a soloist at five international horn workshops sponsored by the International Horn Society. Mr. Lowe has performed numerous recitals at colleges and universities throughout the United States. Orchestral and chamber music engagements have taken him to Europe, the Far East, Brazil, Mexico, Carnegie Hall, and the Blossom Festival in Cleveland.

Laurence Lowe's major orchestral experience includes the San Francisco Opera and San Francisco Ballet; the orchestra of Veracruz, Mexico; the Utah Symphony; and the St. Louis Symphony. Previous to BYU, Mr. Lowe was on the faculty at Missouri University in Columbia, Missouri. A highlight of his time in Missouri was playing with the Missouri Arts Quintet, a remarkable woodwind chamber group in residence at MU.

Since accepting his current faculty position at Brigham Young University in Utah at the Provo Campus, Mr. Lowe has recorded extensively for motion pictures and television, and can be heard playing principal horn on many current motion pictures and television shows. He recently played solo horn in Mannheim Steamrollers' A Fresh Air Christmas video. His first solo CD, Four American Sonatas for Horn and Piano, is available on Tantara Records. A review of the CD in The Horn Call proclaimed, “This disc is a must for everyone's library—superb artistry here by both hornist and pianist in a setting of excellent repertoire.” His Brigham Young University performing includes two exceptional chamber ensembles: the Orpheus Wind Quintet and the Brassworks Brass Quintet. Mr. Lowe is also Principal horn of the Orchestra at Temple Square.

James Thatcher began his professional career at the age of 16 when he played and studied in Mexico City with his uncle, Gerald Thatcher, former principal hornist with the National Symphony of Mexico. Mr. Thatcher has been a member of the Phoenix Symphony, the Utah Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Today he is principal horn of the Pasadena Symphony and the Los Angeles Music Center Opera, but principally he is a studio player, a recipient of the Most Valuable Player Award from the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences, and arguably the most often heard horn player in the world due to his performances on some 70 to 80 films per year for the last 15 years. Mr. Thatcher has recently recorded his first solo album, “Now Playing,” of which reviewer Chris Huning wrote in the Horn Call that Thatcher “shows his supreme mastery of the instrument.”

Introducing the members of Oceans 5

Julie Callahan earned her Bachelor of Music degree in horn performance from The Pennsylvania State University. She was also a winner of their Young Artists Competition, and thereby made her solo debut with the Pittsburgh Symphony. Upon graduation, she taught in Wisconsin at two music conservatories. Her performing experience there included the Central Wisconsin Symphony Orchestra, the La Crosse Symphony, and the Wausau Chamber Orchestra. She also performed the Vivaldi Concerto for Two Horns in F with the Wausau Chamber Orchestra.

Julie moved to the San Francisco Bay area in 1989, taking a 5-year hiatus from horn playing to pursue a full-time career in the computer industry as a technical writer. She returned to the horn in 1994 and has since led a double life with careers in both computers and music.

Ms. Callahan was awarded a graduate scholarship at the University of California–Santa Barbara, and completed her Master of Music degree in horn performance in June of 2004. Currently she works in Web & Multimedia Services at Pepperdine University in Malibu. She is Principal horn with the Topanga Symphony, hornist with the Beach Cities Brass Quintet and Malibu Brass Quintet, and freelances throughout southern California.

Dr. Steven Gross is Director of the Wind, Brass & Percussion Program at UCSB. He is a former member of the Atlanta Symphony, National Symphony, and the Santa Fe Opera Orchestra. His international solo appearances include those with the Orchester der Stadt Vocklabruck in Austria, the Royal Academy of Music in London, the Moscow Conservatory, L’Abri International Arts Festival in Switzerland, and the Nairobi Symphony in Kenya.His Carnegie Hall debut was described by the New York Concert Review as “…offering some of the cleanest articulation and purest musicality…a listenable, bravura display of instrumental technique.”

He has recorded the Britten Serenade with the Camerata Indianapolis; a Baroque CD with the Capella Istropolitana of Slovakia; and the concerti of Richard and Franz Strauss with the Philharmonia Orchestra of Bratislava, which Summit Records will release in 2006. His discography includes recordings on the Telarc, Hyperion, Koch, ProArte, CRI and ACA Digital labels.

Dr. Gross is Principal horn of both Opera Santa Barbara and the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, and a member of the Oregon Coast Festival Orchestra. In fall 1996 he served in the place of Professor Myron Bloom at Indiana University. Dr. Gross has also appeared with the Denver Symphony (also known as the Colorado Symphony).

Kelli Johannesen is a second-year graduate student working on her Masters in Music at UCSB, studying horn with Dr. Steven Gross. She completed her Bachelor of Arts in Music at California Polytechnic State University where she studied with Jane Swanson. She has played with various groups on the Central Coast, including the San Luis Obispo Symphony, Santa Maria Philharmonic, Santa Maria Winds Quintet, and the Maurice Faulkner Brass Quintet at UCSB.

Pamela Kierman graduated with a BMus in Musicology from the University of Port Elizabeth in 1983, having already established an enviable record as pianist, accompanist, and arranger. She worked with the Children's Theatre and the RAD Ballet extensively in her undergraduate years. After graduation she became accompanist of the East Cape Children's Choir.

As French hornist she was a member of the Prince Alfred's Guard Band in its heyday, and thereafter First Horn of the CAPAB Orchestra in Port Elizabeth. She taught brass in the band program at Alexander Road High School until her departure for Cape Town in 1987. She was brass specialist in Cape Town at Hoërskool Voortrekker, then participated in the upgrading of the SACC Band in Wynberg, now the SA Army Western Province Command Band.

In 1991 she became Head of the Plumstead High School Music Department, launching a highly successful band training program there. She was an active participant in the Genesis Project at the University of Cape Town (UCT), an outreach project in brass teaching, and became a part-time lecturer at the SA College of Music. She was active for several years as first horn with the UCT Wind Symphony, the UCT Symphony Orchestra and the Cape Sinfonia, and has played occasionally with the CAPAB Orchestra, the Cape Town Symphony Orchestra and the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra.

Pamela Kierman became Head of Brass at the Beau Soleil Music Centre in 1998, conducting various ensembles, and became active as a chamber musician. She was appointed to the Brass Lectureship at the University of Stellenbosch in 2004.

Sean Kierman was born in Portland, Oregon. As the son of a diplomatic family, he was educated in China, Pakistan, India, and the United States. After studying at Antioch University in Ohio, he did postgraduate studies at Wits University in 1966-67, while playing French horn with the SABC Symphony Orchestra. He played in the Durban Symphony Orchestra before studying further in politics and psychology at the University of the Free State.

He was a central figure in the establishment of the Free State Instrumental program and the OFS Symphony Orchestra. He moved to the University of Port Elizabeth in 1979 to establish the brass studies program there, and moved to the University of Cape Town (UCT) in 1987. Dr. Paul Loeb van Zuilenburg kindly referred to him as the father of university concert bands in South Africa.