Press & Naigus

 It finally feels like spring in Iowa! After what has felt like the longest winter, we finally get to ditch our winter coats for some sunshine. My fiancé Martina and I decided to immediately take advantage of the nice weather and enjoy our morning coffee outside. We decided to go to one of our somewhat regular spots: Press Coffee. 

Press' specialty is french press coffee, which is typically a home brew specialty. I have yet to have a drink here that I didn't enjoy, so it is definitely at the top of my list for Iowa City coffee recommendations. They have plenty of seating whether you prefer outside on the patio or inside on a funky couch. 

This morning's iced latte was much needed after yesterday's Iowa Horn Festival. Overall it was a great day centered all around the horn, and we culminated the day with a massive horn choir performance. I realized I had yet to talk about any horn ensemble works on this blog bigger than a quartet outside of my ABEL Bangers playlist, so I figured now is a perfect time to rectify that! In honor of Iowa and horn, I've decided to talk about Hawkeye alum James Naigus' Aileron for horn octet. 

Dr. James Naigus is currently on faculty at the University of Georgia, as the Lecturer of Horn, as well as the Kendall Betts Horn Camp. He has performed with ensembles across the United States and is a prolific composer. He completed his DMA at the University of Iowa (go Hawks!), masters at the University of Florida, and undergraduate studies at the University of Michigan. 

Aileron was composed in 2015 for the International Horn Symposium in Los Angeles. It was premiered on August 4, 2015 at the Colburn School by Randy Garner, Kerry Turner, Geof Winter, Jeffrey Powers, Nicholas Smith, Steven Gross, Dan Phillips, and JG Miller, conducted by Daniel Baldwin. Aileron is a great opener for a horn ensemble concert, with exciting rips and soaring horn lines. It is relatively short,  only around two and half minutes, and the high horn parts are not too taxing, so you wouldn't need to worry about chopping out after the first number. This piece really highlights the idiomatic abilities of the horn, and shows off Naigus' expertise of the instrument. While this piece was written for 8 horns, I believe you could perform this with a larger horn ensemble doubling parts. In general, I really love horn choir above other single instrument ensembles because the range of the instrument allows for wide chordal voicing. It's been fun this semester getting back into horn choir here at Iowa, and I can't wait to see what we play next spring! 

P.S. Would this even be a post about a living composer without me dropping a commission consortium I've participated in? Check out this work by Naigus titled Odyssey, I'm so happy to have supported this work and can't wait to perform it (maybe coming to a DMA I recital near you 👀) 

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