Musicians young and old congregated in Capistrano Hall Sunday morning to participate in Hornday 2007, an annual event orchestrated by the Director of the Sacramento State Symphony, Peter Nowlen. Participants roamed the halls testing reeds and cleaning spit valves as the rehearsals began. Hornday started in the morning with rehearsals and ended with an evening concert.

“Hornday is a day for young and old musicians,” Nowlen said. “We have over 70 people here between the ages of 11 and 75.” Western Illinois University Music Professor Randall Faust was also there to assist Nowlen in preparing the students for the evening concert. Faust is a musician with an impressive resume that includes the Summer Horn Faculty and the Interlochen Center for the Arts. His compositions have been published internationally and he has had recordings sold.

Faust played some of his compositions for the master class that he held at 11 a.m. The class was open to all musicians and Faust then turned the floor over to some Sac State musicians, who performed works of Mozart and Karl Atterburg. Angelina Contreras performed the Mozart piece “Allegro Maestoso,” and Jose Villalobos played “Allegro Pathetico” by Atterburg with senior Ryan Lee accompanying him on piano. There were many high school students in attendance as well. Kyle Thomason is a sophomore at Franklin High School who has been playing the horn for close to a year. “My section leader is in the wind ensemble, and I want some extra credit,” Thomason said.Kathy Bowman is a librarian at UC Davis who has played the horn for 47 years.

“I wanna play,” was her simple assessment of why she attended Hornday.

Jeff Falkner teaches Aeronautics at Sacramento City College. He has been playing the horn since 1972. Falkner has attended all of the Horndays and was personally tutored by Peter Nowlen.

Falkner graduated from Ithaca College in New York with a master’s in education and a bachelor’s in music. He was in the Air Force and flew C-130 airplanes in Laos as part of Linebacker II, which was a supplementary mission to the Vietnam War effort. Falkner spoke very highly of Hornday and Peter Nowlen.

“He loves music and loves teaching,” Falker said. “He is definitely in the top 5 percent of educators.”

Hornday is also a day for local merchants to showcase some of their instruments.

David Otteson of A&G Music in Oakland was on hand with a large display of French horns. “Most of these horns are actually made in America,” Otteson said. “There are about 16 feet of brass in each one of these horns. They can retail for as much as $8,000, but many are around $2,500 to $3,000.” The retailers were able to keep all of the profits from the items they sold, but all of the sales of tickets, T-shirts and sheet music went to pay for the costs of Hornday. “Hornday is a self-sustaining event,” Nowlen said. With the exception of 2006, Hornday has been an annual event on campus since 1991.

Hornday also featured William Klingelhoffer, a member of the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra, and Scott L. Hartman, who has performed with Luciano Pavarotti and is a founding member of the Silicon Valley Brass Quintet.

Hornday 2007 continued the tradition of bringing together gifted amateurs young and old, giving them tips and lessons from established and passionate performers.

Jordan Guinn can be reached at [email protected].