Karl Pituch

Karl Pituch was named Principal Horn of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in 2000. Before joining the DSO, Pituch was Associate Principal Horn with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Principal Horn with the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra, the Jacksonville Symphony and the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra. He served as a guest Principal Horn for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the St. Louis Symphony, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Chautauqua Festival Orchestra and the Grand Teton Festival Orchestra. Pituch can be heard on many recordings with the Detroit, Dallas, San Francisco and Honolulu Symphony Orchestras and as soloist in the John Williams horn concerto.

Pituch was the grand prize winner at the 1989 American Solo Horn Competition and has been a finalist at many other solo competitions. As a soloist, Pituch has performed with orchestras in Japan, Hawaii, Colorado, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Ohio, Florida and Michigan. He has been a frequent guest artist at numerous horn conferences and serves as a board member and judge in the American Horn Competition. An active chamber musician, Pituch was a member of the Spring Wind Quintet for 11 years and participated in chamber music festivals in Marlboro, Vermont; Crested Butte, Colorado; Kapalua, Maui; Kazusa, Japan and Freden, Germany (with the American Horn Quartet).

Pituch is currently the horn instructor at Wayne State University. He has taught at the University of Hawaii and has given master classes across the U.S. He is a co-founder, along with Denise Tryon, of Audition Mode, an annual horn seminar specializing in audition preparation. Pituch earned his degree from the University of Toledo where he studied with Mary Kihslinger. He also studied with Frøydis Ree Wekre and Dale Clevenger.

Bernhard Scully

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 Violons du Roy (Quebec City) on their most recent recording; performing with the Prairie Winds Wind Quintet at the Madeline Island Music Camp, Wisconsin; 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, Northwest Horn Workshop, and International Horn Convention in Denton, Texas.

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, and toured nationally and internationally. He is a founding member of the Contrapunctus Brass 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 Bachelor’s Degree with honors at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, and his Master’s 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.

Dan Spencer

Dan Spencer, a native of Southwest Michigan, is an accomplished horn performer and teacher currently residing in Iowa City, Iowa. As an active musician in the area, Dan performs regularly with multiple regional orchestras as well as performing with Low Trio and the Iowa Brass Collective. He is an active teacher and clinician and maintains a pre-college studio while being highly sought to perform and teach masterclasses and seminars in both horn and classical improvisation/creativity. Dan uses improvisation and creativity to inspire students of different levels of ability to find success in music on any instrument.

Dan is currently finishing his Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Iowa. He received his Bachelor of Music degree in Horn Performance and Pedagogy from the University of Tennessee at Martin and received the Master of Music Degree in Horn Performance from Western Michigan University.

Dan’s teachers include Jeffrey Agrell, Lin Foulk, and Michael Hernon.

Douglas Hill

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.