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Anthony Halstead has been a leader in
the period instrument movement as horn
player, harpsichordist, scholar,
advisor, and conductor. He is a teacher
who has influenced many professionals
and is a coach of amateur hornists and
other musicians. As an inventive
technician, he has developed a range of
mouthpieces (with Tony Chidell) and
other aids to better sound production.
Halstead was born in 1945 in
Manchester, England, attending Chetham’s
School and the Royal Manchester College
of Music, where he studied piano, horn,
organ, and composition. At the
suggestion of his horn teacher, Sydney
Coulston, Halstead specialized in horn.
He was principal horn in the BBC
Scottish Symphony in 1966, later a
member of the London Symphony Orchestra
and first horn in the English Chamber
Orchestra (1973-1986). It was during his
tenure with the ECO that he became
interested in the natural horn.
Halstead recalls a lecture-recital
with Barry Tuckwell and Horace
Fitzpatrick (author of
The Horn and
Horn Playing and the Austro-Bohemian
Tradition from 1680-1830). Tuckwell
played a fragment of a Mozart concerto
or the Beethoven sonata on the modern
horn, and then Fitzpatrick played the
same passage on the natural horn. "I was
utterly fascinated and charmed by the
range of color," says Halstead, "as well
as the appropriateness of the use of the
stopped notes to either enhance a
musical phrase or to bring some dramatic
point to life."
After leaving college, Halstead took
several lessons with Horace Fitzpatrick
and Myron Bloom. He also studied
harpsichord with George Malcolm and
conducting with Michael Rose and Sir
Charles Mackerras.
His first public performances on
natural horn occurred in 1973: the Bach
Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 and the
Telemann Concerto a tré for horn and
recorder. He played on a Paxman hand
horn (basically a modern horn with the
valves removed) with the orchestra all
on modern instruments. He has since been
associated with the Academy of Ancient
Music, the Orchestra of the Age of
Enlightenment, and especially Hanover
Band, has taught at the Guildhall School
of Music, and is active as a private
teacher and in the British Horn Society.
Halstead's work as a conductor in the
period-instrument movement takes him to
modern orchestras whose players, using
conventional instruments, wish to
develop a stylistic awareness of
authentic practice in the baroque,
classical, and romantic eras. He has a
special empathy with the Australian
Chamber Orchestra, the Netherlands Radio
Chamber Orchestra, and the Uppsala
Chamber Orchestra.
Halstead made his first solo CD in
1986, recording Weber’s Concertino on
the natural horn with the Hanover Band
for Nimbus. This been re-released.
Halstead completed a seven-year project
with the Hanover Band, recording on 22
CDs all the orchestral music of J.C.
Bach and playing solo harpsichord or
fortepiano in the 27 keyboard concertos,
directing the orchestra from the
keyboard.
Other solo CDs include the Concertos
of Joseph and Michael Haydn, and two
separate recordings, six years apart, of
the Mozart concertos, with the Hanover
Band and the Academy of Ancient Music.
On the modern horn he has recorded the
Britten Serenade with American tenor
Jerry Hadley.
Halstead was elected an Honorary
Member at the 2010 IHS Symposium in
Brisbane, Australia. He is also an
Honorary Member of the British Horn
Society. Paul Austin interviewed him in
the February 1996 issue of
The Horn
Call.
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