Horn of plenty
OKC Philharmonic's principal French horn embraces a cornucopia of musical challenges
From figuring out the creepy quirks of Philip Feeney's chilling “Dracula” score for the Oklahoma City Ballet to learning the harmonica for Missy Mazzoli's otherworldy “Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres)” for the Oklahoma City Philharmonic's Classics series,
Kate Pritchett's days are a veritable horn of plenty of musical challenges. That's just the way she likes it.
“It' s different everyday, and even with the students, they're all different. They all have different issues and you work on different pieces. It's hard to imagine having a job where it's the same thing every day,” said Pritchett, the Oklahoma
City Philharmonic's principal French horn player.
“I did that for a while and it was so boring. And that's when I came back to being a musician.”
Following her brief and boring detour as a legal secretary, Pritchett finished her master's degree at the University of North Texas and embarked on her 20- year career as a professional musician. She is the first woman principal in the brass section for the Oklahoma City Philharmonic.
“I was almost as excited about that as I was about actually winning the job. The brass is one of the last bastions ... where you see more men,” said Pritchett, who earned her principal role in 2015.
The orchestra's next two Classics per formances will have Pritchett taking on particular challenges: She will be among eight musicians who will swap their usual instruments for harmonic as on Mazzoli's “Sinfonia” for Saturday's program titled “Italian Gems,” and she will play a key solo on Dmitri Shost ako vic h' s “Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major, op .107” at the Nov. 23 concert, themed“A Powerful Utterance.”
“I love her playing ,” said OKC Philharmonic Music Director Alexander Mickelthwate, who will conduct Saturday's concert. “She's one of my star players. She so musical and solid. It's a real pleasure to have her in the orchestra.”
Going solo
Gerard Schwarz, who will be guest conductor for the Nov. 23 Classics concert, doesn't have to know Pritchett to know she must be a talented player since the orchestra picked Shost ako vic h' s first cello concerto from his list of possible selections, along with Hector Berlioz's overture to his comic opera “Béatrice et Bénédict” and the first two suites from Maurice Ravel's ballet “Daphnis and Chloe.”
He called the concerto “among the great works for cello and orchestra of the 20th century.”
“When you do this piece, you have to make sure you have a good solo horn ... because it's a big solo horn part. And the solo horn actually sits up front when I do it. The orchestra is a small orchestra in terms of size ... but the horn part is of crucial importance,” he said.
Musicians who aren't willing tome tap horically toot their own horns probably aren't cut out for the role of principal horn.
“The principal horn has an awful lot of solos, in combination with other instruments and sometimes all by ourselves, too,” said Pritchett, who started playing with the OKC Philharmonic as an extra and substitute in 2005 and fully joined its ranks in 2009.
“For the right personality type, I think it is really exciting. It can be a little bit scary — terrifying at times — there's not much going and then it's all you. And the horn is a treacherous instrument at times. But I really enjoy it.”
“I guess I don't mind being the center of attention is what I' m telling you,” she added with a laugh.
More music
More so los means more music to master for Pritchett, who is also a professor at Oklahoma City University, where she gives individual lessons, coaches ensembles and teaches freshmen classes on music theory and aural skills.
“We have a real active faculty brass quintet at OCU, so that definitely helps me keep in shape and work on my ensemble skills on a really regular basis. I'm really lucky to get to do that,” she said.
She also is as the principal horn with the Lawton Phil harmonic and often performs with Bright music Chamber Music Ensemble, Lyric Theatre and national tours of Broadway musicals that come to Oklahoma City.
Plus, the OK C Phil harmonic doesn' t just perform Classics concerts: It has a Pops series, which opens Nov. 8-9 in concert with Tony nominee Megan Hil ty. Pritchett also frequently accompanies OKC Ballet and Canterbury Voices.
“It helps to have a really supportive husband who does an awful lot of taking care of the dogs and the house and stuff like that on these weeks that it's really busy,” said Pritchett, who has been married to her spouse, Neal Kellogg, for 15 years.
Strong players
For Mick el thw ate, strong players like Pr it ch et th ave allowed him freedom in programming the orchestra' s Classics seasons.
“Nowhere have I put together a season so freely. There are combinations that I personally really love, contrasts that I really love, and I am really looking forward to. Also, (there are) the little storylines in the program t hat are unusual,” said Mickelthwate, who is in his second year as music director.
Showcasing music inspired by( but not f rom) “The Godfather” film trilogy, Saturday's concert will include Ni ccolò Pagan in i' s “Violin Concerto No. 2 in B minor ,” with soloist Benjamin Sch mid on violin; Ottorino Respighi's “Fountains of Rome ;” Giuseppe Verdi' s“Te De um ,” with special guests Canterbury Voices and men from Oklahoma City University's choral music program; and Ennio Morricone's “Gabriel's Oboe” from the movie “The Mission,” along with the Mazzoli piece.
“This is definitely very different, and the preparation is more involved because a lot of this ... we haven't played before,” Pr it ch et ts aid .“I think i t's really exciting, and I've been really excited also by how the audience has responded. There's a worry that `Oh, they'll only want to heart he really traditional stuff,' but they've just been so positive in what I can tell sitting on stage with their responses to this music.”
Plus, she's eager to add harmonica player to her resume.
“That's something I've never done before, and I feel like that's good for my brain,” she said with a laugh. “We're used to this certain color palette with a symphony orchestra ... and then you're going to hear this thing that you associate with a blues band. ... I think it will be really striking.”