Western Hornist
Western Illinois Horn Festival 2020
2020 Horn Festival
Western Illinois University, COFAC Recital Hall
Date: Saturday, April 4, 2020
Time: 9 am - 5 pm
Cost: $30 (prior to March 28), $40 (same day registration)
**Checks should be made payable to Western Illinois University
*** Checks must be mailed and postmarked prior to April 1, 2019 for early-bird pricing to:
Registration Register Online or download the Registration Form and bring in person or mail to:
Dr. Jena Gardner
Browne 126A
1 University Circle, Macomb, Illinois 61455
Schedule of Events
| 8:30 am | Registration |
| 9 am | Group Warm-Up |
| 10 am | Horn Festival Choir Rehearsal Session |
| 11 am | Masterclass with the Cobalt Quartet (Roger Collins Winners/College Performers) |
| 12:30 | Lunch Break (food available for purchase at University Union or the Corbin-Olson Dining Center) |
| 1:15-1:45 |
|
| 2 pm | * Faculty Recital and Horn Festival Choir |
| 3 pm | TBD |
| 3:45 pm | Break |
| 4 pm | * Guest Artist Recital: Cobalt Quartet |
| * Performances are free and open to the public | |
The Roger Collins Award
Roger Collins Award Application (High School Students)
This award is in memory of ROGER COLLINS - The founding Hornist of the Camerata Woodwind Quintet and Horn Professor at Western Illinois University from 1966-1997.
E-Mail JE-Gardner2@wiu.edu with any questions.
This award is in memory of ROGER COLLINS - The founding Hornist of the Camerata Woodwind Quintet and Horn Professor at Western Illinois University from 1966-1997.
- Applicants must be current High School students.
- The application, recording, AND horn festival registration must be received by Monday, March 17 at 5 pm.
-
Applicants should submit two digital audio or video recordings to this form:
- A 5-7 minute solo of your choice (for example: first movement of a Mozart or Strauss Concerto or Beethoven Sonata)
- The first horn solo from Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphony, II. Antante cantibile. Available at Tchaikovsky — Symphony No 5, op. 64
- Up to two awardees will participate in the Cobalt Quartet masterclass and receive a $100 prize.
E-Mail JE-Gardner2@wiu.edu with any questions.
Masterclass Performer
Masterclass Performer Application (College Students)
E-Mail JE-Gardner2@wiu.edu with any questions.
- Applicants must be current college students (undergraduate or graduate).
- The application, recording, AND horn festival registration must be received by Monday, March 17 at 5 pm.
-
Applicants should submit ONE digital audio or video recordings from the following options:
- A 8-10 minute solo of your choice (for example: first movement of a Mozart or Strauss Concerto or Beethoven Sonata)
- Three contrasting orchestral excerpts.
- Up to two individuals will be selected to participate in the Gail Williams Masterclass on April 4.
E-Mail JE-Gardner2@wiu.edu with any questions.
Artist Biographies
Cobalt Quartet
Founded in 2017, Cobalt Quartet is a professional horn quartet comprised of four female hornists and educators, Jena Gardner, Katie Johnson-Webb, Caroline Steiger and Rose Valby. In August 2018, Cobalt Quartet won the professional division of the International Horn Society’s Horn Quartet Competition. Cobalt Quartet has given performances and masterclasses across the United States. Members of the ensemble hold positions at Western Illinois University, Texas State University, The University of Tennessee-Knoxville, and in the United States Air Force Band of the West. Through their performances and master classes, the Cobalt Quartet is dedicated to educating, engaging, and entertaining audiences of all ages and backgrounds.
Dr. Jena Gardner
Jena Gardner, DMA, is the Assistant Professor of Horn at Western Illinois University. In addition to teaching, she is an active soloist, chamber musician and orchestral player throughout the state of Illinois and the United States. Dr. Gardner has performed extensively around the world including tours in Europe, Mexico, Japan, and the United States. She has been a guest section member with the Chicago Lyric Opera, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Intercontemporain, the Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra, Steamboat Springs Festival Orchestra horn sections and was acting 2nd and 4th horn of the Louisiana Philharmonic orchestra for the 2012 and 2013 seasons respectively.
Dr. Gardner is a passionate chamber musician and can be heard performing with the faculty ensembles at WIU: the Camerata Woodwind Quintet and the Lamoine Brass Quintet . From 2010-2015 she was a member of the Arabesque Winds. With that ensemble, she performed concerts and master classes at the University of Madison, Wisconsin, the Sanibel Music Festival, the Wooster Chamber Music Festival and many others.
In 2016 Dr. Gardner was the recipient of the Early Music America Summer Study Scholarship and attended the Natural Horn Workshop at Indiana University, studying with Dr. Richard Seraphinoff. Previously, she has participated in the Lucerne Festival Academy, the Youth Orchestras of America, New York String Orchestra Seminar, and the Pacific Music Festival. From 2007-09, Dr. Gardner was a member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and had the privilege to perform under the batons of Bernard Haitink, Pierre Boulez, Mark Elder, Esa-pekka Salonen and many others.
Dr. Gardner recently completed a Doctor of Musical Arts at Northwestern University under the guidance of Gail Williams and Jon Boen and was involved in presenting the 2016 and 2017 Peak Performance Horn Symposiums. She holds Masters and Bachelors degrees in horn performance from Carnegie Mellon and Northwestern Universities respectively. Her principal teachers have included Gail Williams, Jon Boen, Bill Caballero, Dave Krehbiel, and Jennie Blomster.
Dr. Katie Johnson-Webb
Katie Johnson-Webb is the Assistant Professor of Horn at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. She excels as a flexible, thoughtful, and active performer of solo repertoire, chamber music, and orchestral literature. In past years, Katie was selected to attend the Aspen Summer Music Festival in Aspen, Colorado, the Kent/Blossom Music Festival in Kent, Ohio, and the National Repertory Orchestra in Breckenridge, Colorado.
Katie has been heard in recital at the 2018 International Horn Symposium at Ball State University, the 2016 International Horn Symposium at Ithaca College, and the 2015 International Horn Symposium at the Colburn School. Additionally, Katie has given recitals and masterclasses at universities across the United States. In July 2018, Katie collaborated with pianist, Kirstin Idhe, to record her first solo CD, La Loba, which will be released in 2019. As an active chamber musician, Katie is a member of the Tennessee Brass Quintet and a founding member of the Cobalt Horn Quartet, winners of the 2018 International Horn Society Horn Quartet Competition – Professional Division.
As a clinician, she presented a lecture on incorporating ear training in private teaching at the 2015 Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic in Chicago, IL. Katie has presented similar lectures at the 2017 and 2016 Southeast Horn Workshops and the 2015 Northeast Horn Workshop.
Katie completed her undergraduate studies in music and political science at Valparaiso University in Valparaiso, Indiana. Katie completed the Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2012 under the direction of Professor Emeritus Douglas Hill and Professor Daniel Grabois. While completing the Master of Music degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, she worked closely with Professor Douglas Hill as a Bolz Fellow. In 2018, she was awarded a grant from the American Scandinavian Foundation to collaborate with Norwegian hornist and pedagogue, Frøydis Ree Wekre in Oslo, Norway.
Dr. Caroline Steiger
As a teacher Dr. Steiger has held positions at SUNY Potsdam’s Crane School of Music (Visiting Assistant Professor of Horn, 2014), Penn State University (Teacher Assistant), and the University of Michigan (Graduate Student Assistant). While at Penn State University, Caroline was the Assistant Director of the Penn State Horn Ensemble and helped plan tours that included performances at the Pennsylvania Music Educator’s Association (PMEA) conference, Lancaster, and Hershey, PA.
Dr. Steiger’s work as a musician has included performances with the San Antonio Symphony, Toledo Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings, and the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra during its 2015 US tour. She is currently 2nd Horn in the Mid-Texas Symphony.
Committed to chamber music, Dr. Steiger has played with the Potsdam Brass Quintet, faculty quintet-in-residence at SUNY Potsdam, the Emblems Woodwind Quintet, an Ann Arbor-based quintet focused on performing new and underrepresented works, and is a founding member of the Cobalt Quartet (Winners, 2018 International Horn Society Quartet Competition-Professional Division). Dr. Steiger has presented and performed at the Texas Music Educators Association Conference (2018), the Association for Technology in Music (2017), and the International Horn Society Symposium (2018). In 2015 she participated in a chamber music residency at the University of Michigan with New York Philharmonic principal winds, where she performed with Philip Myers. A commitment to new music is evident through her participation in chamber ensembles as well as the University of Michigan’s Contemporary Directions Ensemble, which premiered several works by U of M composition students and participated in the Midwest Composers Symposium in 2013.
Dr. Steiger’s main teachers include Adam Unsworth, Bryan Kennedy, Lisa Bontrager, Soren Hermansson, and Corbin Wagner. She has also studied with and participated in master classes with Gail Williams, Fergus McWilliam, David Krehbiel, Robert Ward, Bernhard Scully, and Jeffrey Lang.
Dr. Rose Valby
Dr. Rose Valby is a member of the United States Air Force Band of the West in San Antonio, Texas. Rose has performed with the Chamber Orchestra of San Antonio, Nickel City Opera, Ash Lawn Opera, and San Antonio, Mid-Texas, Austin, Brazos Valley, Round Rock, and Fort Smith symphonies, among others. In Austin, she has also performed with Ballet Austin, ZACH and Salvage Vanguard theaters, Chorus Austin, Texas Choral Consort, and Adele on the Adele Live tour. She was a member of the award-winning woodwind quintet QuinTexas, with whom she received the 2016 Senior Winds Division Silver Medal at the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition, Third Place in the 2016 American Prize for Chamber Music Performance, and the 2015 Coleman-Saunderson Prize in Winds, Brass, and Percussion at the Coleman Chamber Ensemble Competition. Rose is a founding member of the Cobalt Quartet, winner of the 2018 International Horn Society Quartet Competition Professional Division. As an active teacher and clinician, Rose has held teaching positions at Austin Community College, the University of Texas' Longhorn Band Camp, the Austin Chamber Music Center Summer Adult Workshop, and in the prestigious band programs of Leander ISD in Central Texas. She has been a participant of several music festivals including the National Orchestral Institute, Sewanee Summer Music Festival, and Youth Orchestra of the Americas.
Rose received the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Horn Performance at The University of Texas at Austin, where she served as the Graduate Teaching Assistant for the horn studio, the Master of Music degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she was an inaugural member of the Graduate Brass Quintet Scholarship program and recipient of the John Barrows Scholarship, and the Bachelor of Music degree from Ithaca College, where she was a winner of the Ithaca College Annual Concerto Competition. Rose’s principal teachers include Patrick Hughes, Douglas Hill, and Alex Shuhan.
Dr. Jena Gardner
Jena Gardner, DMA, is the Assistant Professor of Horn at Western Illinois University. In addition to teaching, she is an active soloist, chamber musician and orchestral player throughout the state of Illinois and the United States. Dr. Gardner has performed extensively around the world including tours in Europe, Mexico, Japan, and the United States. She has been a guest section member with the Chicago Lyric Opera, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Intercontemporain, the Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra, Steamboat Springs Festival Orchestra horn sections and was acting 2nd and 4th horn of the Louisiana Philharmonic orchestra for the 2012 and 2013 seasons respectively.
Dr. Gardner is a passionate chamber musician and can be heard performing with the faculty ensembles at WIU: the Camerata Woodwind Quintet and the Lamoine Brass Quintet . From 2010-2015 she was a member of the Arabesque Winds. With that ensemble, she performed concerts and master classes at the University of Madison, Wisconsin, the Sanibel Music Festival, the Wooster Chamber Music Festival and many others.
In 2016 Dr. Gardner was the recipient of the Early Music America Summer Study Scholarship and attended the Natural Horn Workshop at Indiana University, studying with Dr. Richard Seraphinoff. Previously, she has participated in the Lucerne Festival Academy, the Youth Orchestras of America, New York String Orchestra Seminar, and the Pacific Music Festival. From 2007-09, Dr. Gardner was a member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and had the privilege to perform under the batons of Bernard Haitink, Pierre Boulez, Mark Elder, Esa-pekka Salonen and many others.
Dr. Gardner recently completed a Doctor of Musical Arts at Northwestern University under the guidance of Gail Williams and Jon Boen and was involved in presenting the 2016 and 2017 Peak Performance Horn Symposiums. She holds Masters and Bachelors degrees in horn performance from Carnegie Mellon and Northwestern Universities respectively. Her principal teachers have included Gail Williams, Jon Boen, Bill Caballero, Dave Krehbiel, and Jennie Blomster.
Dr. Katie Johnson-Webb
Katie Johnson-Webb is the Assistant Professor of Horn at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. She excels as a flexible, thoughtful, and active performer of solo repertoire, chamber music, and orchestral literature. In past years, Katie was selected to attend the Aspen Summer Music Festival in Aspen, Colorado, the Kent/Blossom Music Festival in Kent, Ohio, and the National Repertory Orchestra in Breckenridge, Colorado.
Katie has been heard in recital at the 2018 International Horn Symposium at Ball State University, the 2016 International Horn Symposium at Ithaca College, and the 2015 International Horn Symposium at the Colburn School. Additionally, Katie has given recitals and masterclasses at universities across the United States. In July 2018, Katie collaborated with pianist, Kirstin Idhe, to record her first solo CD, La Loba, which will be released in 2019. As an active chamber musician, Katie is a member of the Tennessee Brass Quintet and a founding member of the Cobalt Horn Quartet, winners of the 2018 International Horn Society Horn Quartet Competition – Professional Division.
As a clinician, she presented a lecture on incorporating ear training in private teaching at the 2015 Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic in Chicago, IL. Katie has presented similar lectures at the 2017 and 2016 Southeast Horn Workshops and the 2015 Northeast Horn Workshop.
Katie completed her undergraduate studies in music and political science at Valparaiso University in Valparaiso, Indiana. Katie completed the Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2012 under the direction of Professor Emeritus Douglas Hill and Professor Daniel Grabois. While completing the Master of Music degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, she worked closely with Professor Douglas Hill as a Bolz Fellow. In 2018, she was awarded a grant from the American Scandinavian Foundation to collaborate with Norwegian hornist and pedagogue, Frøydis Ree Wekre in Oslo, Norway.
Dr. Caroline Steiger
As a teacher Dr. Steiger has held positions at SUNY Potsdam’s Crane School of Music (Visiting Assistant Professor of Horn, 2014), Penn State University (Teacher Assistant), and the University of Michigan (Graduate Student Assistant). While at Penn State University, Caroline was the Assistant Director of the Penn State Horn Ensemble and helped plan tours that included performances at the Pennsylvania Music Educator’s Association (PMEA) conference, Lancaster, and Hershey, PA.
Dr. Steiger’s work as a musician has included performances with the San Antonio Symphony, Toledo Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings, and the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra during its 2015 US tour. She is currently 2nd Horn in the Mid-Texas Symphony.
Committed to chamber music, Dr. Steiger has played with the Potsdam Brass Quintet, faculty quintet-in-residence at SUNY Potsdam, the Emblems Woodwind Quintet, an Ann Arbor-based quintet focused on performing new and underrepresented works, and is a founding member of the Cobalt Quartet (Winners, 2018 International Horn Society Quartet Competition-Professional Division). Dr. Steiger has presented and performed at the Texas Music Educators Association Conference (2018), the Association for Technology in Music (2017), and the International Horn Society Symposium (2018). In 2015 she participated in a chamber music residency at the University of Michigan with New York Philharmonic principal winds, where she performed with Philip Myers. A commitment to new music is evident through her participation in chamber ensembles as well as the University of Michigan’s Contemporary Directions Ensemble, which premiered several works by U of M composition students and participated in the Midwest Composers Symposium in 2013.
Dr. Steiger’s main teachers include Adam Unsworth, Bryan Kennedy, Lisa Bontrager, Soren Hermansson, and Corbin Wagner. She has also studied with and participated in master classes with Gail Williams, Fergus McWilliam, David Krehbiel, Robert Ward, Bernhard Scully, and Jeffrey Lang.
Dr. Rose Valby
Dr. Rose Valby is a member of the United States Air Force Band of the West in San Antonio, Texas. Rose has performed with the Chamber Orchestra of San Antonio, Nickel City Opera, Ash Lawn Opera, and San Antonio, Mid-Texas, Austin, Brazos Valley, Round Rock, and Fort Smith symphonies, among others. In Austin, she has also performed with Ballet Austin, ZACH and Salvage Vanguard theaters, Chorus Austin, Texas Choral Consort, and Adele on the Adele Live tour. She was a member of the award-winning woodwind quintet QuinTexas, with whom she received the 2016 Senior Winds Division Silver Medal at the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition, Third Place in the 2016 American Prize for Chamber Music Performance, and the 2015 Coleman-Saunderson Prize in Winds, Brass, and Percussion at the Coleman Chamber Ensemble Competition. Rose is a founding member of the Cobalt Quartet, winner of the 2018 International Horn Society Quartet Competition Professional Division. As an active teacher and clinician, Rose has held teaching positions at Austin Community College, the University of Texas' Longhorn Band Camp, the Austin Chamber Music Center Summer Adult Workshop, and in the prestigious band programs of Leander ISD in Central Texas. She has been a participant of several music festivals including the National Orchestral Institute, Sewanee Summer Music Festival, and Youth Orchestra of the Americas.
Rose received the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Horn Performance at The University of Texas at Austin, where she served as the Graduate Teaching Assistant for the horn studio, the Master of Music degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she was an inaugural member of the Graduate Brass Quintet Scholarship program and recipient of the John Barrows Scholarship, and the Bachelor of Music degree from Ithaca College, where she was a winner of the Ithaca College Annual Concerto Competition. Rose’s principal teachers include Patrick Hughes, Douglas Hill, and Alex Shuhan.
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