Swelling French horn and sustaining piano filled the FAC Recital Hall Monday as visiting musicians Johanna Yarbrough and Kevin Chance performed.
Yarbrough works at Louisiana State University as a horn professor and has presented recitals and masterclasses at universities nationwide. She performs with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, among other ensembles, and has won the university division of the International Horn Competition of America, among other awards.
Chance is the chair of piano studies at the University of Alabama. He and Yarbrough have been performing together since she was an undergraduate student at Alabama.
Yarbrough taught a masterclass during horn studio time Monday morning. Four students played orchestral excerpts for her to critique.
“You get a 12-minute lesson in front of an audience, so we can’t get too in-depth, but we talk about some of the broader concepts of brass playing and horn playing, more specifically,” Yarbrough said.
The musicians arrived Sunday night and left Tuesday morning for Southeast Missouri State University to give another recital and masterclass.
Emily Britton, a WKU professor of horn and music theory, hosted Yarbrough and Chance during their visit to the Hill.
Britton met Yarbrough at the University of Alabama. They had a mutual friend who encouraged them to room together during the week-long International Horn Competition of America. Yarbrough won first place and Britton received second.
“We think there was something in the air or the water,” Yarbrough said. “We had the lucky room,”
Britton kept up with Yarbrough over social media.
“I knew she was a fantastic player, so here she is,” Britton said.
Yarbrough and Chance entered through the side door to the stage, took their bows, and began to play.
Yarbrough introduced each selection of music in the recital. The duo played “Horn Concerto no. 3 in E Flat Major” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as their opening piece.
“It wouldn’t be a horn recital if we didn’t kick it off with a little bit of Mozart,” Yarbrough said.
Yarbrough chose “Scarlet Waltz,” composed by James Naigus in 2019, as the second piece.
“James Naigus is the horn professor at the University of Georgia, and he’s also an incredibly talented composer,” Yarbrough said. “I find that his knowledge of the instrument lends itself very well to his compositions.”
Yarbrough commissioned a piece from Naigus titled “Elegy” for two horns and brass ensemble.
Edith Borroff created the third and fourth songs, “Rhapsody” and “Scherzo,” which are the first two pieces of her 1953 “Sonata for Horn and Piano.”
“It came to me because it’s on the international horn competition of America’s repertoire list,” Yarbrough said. “It turns out it’s a beautiful piece of music that should be played more.”
Borroff taught at multiple universities after completing her education at the American Conservatory of Music and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.
“Her areas of research centered on 17th-century French chamber music, American and contemporary music, music education, and pre-history,” her obituary stated.
Yarbrough and Chance stepped off stage for intermission before playing “Imaginings” by Dorothy Gates in 2017. The piece was written for multiple instrument pairings, including horn and brass band, horn and piano, baritone and brass band, and baritone and piano.
“So, if any of you little brass players out there love that piece, it is available to you,” Yarbrough said.
The musicians performed “Nocturno op. 7” by Franz Strauss for their second-to-last piece. Strauss was a German composer and horn player. The opus was one of his most famous publications.
“For all you horn players out there, this was probably one of the first pieces that you really fell in love with,” Yarbrough said.
Yarbrough and Chance performed “Song of a New World” by Richard Bissill, composed in 2014. The music included multiple horn solo opportunities for Yarbrough.
Before the last piece, Yarbrough advised the student audience members that their performance does not determine their worth, that she believed in “music over technique,” and to “just keep playing.”
After the performance concluded, Yarbrough and Chance took their final bows. Audience members approached for photos and instrumental advice.
