Welcome To Angela’s Horn Studio

Welcome to my first post!  I have to admit that I am a bit of an old-school girl, and entering the blogosphere is something I never thought I would be interested in doing.  So why now?  And why Angela’s Horn Studio?

I guess it all boils down to what I wish for my own students, and wish for everyone with a desire to learn about music.  Since I have no physical studio in an educational institution where one can bop by at nearly any hour of the day and ask me questions, or look at what books I’ve got on my bookshelf, or what recordings I have next to my record player (told you I was old-school!),  I hope that this can be a virtual simulation of that kind of space — a place for resources and guidance and ideas.  Though this blog can be for anyone’s consumption, I’m approaching it with a focus on my own students and will introduce them to my readers and, in some cases, to each other (many of them haven’t met!).   I’m also really looking forward to interviewing some of my former students so that the younger ones can have an idea of the various directions one can go and what people are doing with their musical or non-musical lives, as the case may be.

The other reason for this blog is that I believe this is a highly interesting time in the arts and in music.  The world is changing so quickly, and studies are starting to show that technology is literally changing us – our brains are being changed by the pace of our lives and by the way we interact (or don’t interact) with our various environments.  This is my attempt to use technology as a tool to encourage the kind of in-depth experience that keeps us in the present moment, connected to history and beauty, and that demands our total awareness and absolute best efforts.  There are very few pursuits in this world that encourage this way of being and connecting, and a pursuit in classical music (professionally or not) is one of them!

My ultimate wish for my students, and for any other readers of my blog I pick up along the way, is not that they become the most brilliant professional players in the business (though I have no doubt a few of them might do just that).  My wish is two-fold: that, by experiencing this tradition that contains much of the human race’s greatest and most profound creations, they will be enriched and fed by what they experience;  secondly, that the process of striving for excellence will lead them to learn about themselves and how to attain excellence in all areas of their lives.

I look forward to your comments and interaction –  both with me and with each other – along the way.  Have fun!