In the summer of 2012, Anna Lenhart, a French horn performance major attended the Aspen Music Festival for a second year in a row. Lenhart participated in lessons and master classes and played in the festival orchestras and chamber groups.
“The horn faculty made weekly orchestra assignments based on the initial seating auditions as well as performance in lessons, master classes, and previous orchestral assignments,” Lenhart said, “It definitely kept us students on our toes.”
At the festival students are also given the opportunity to take classes from and play alongside professionals.
“During the first week I was assigned to play Beethoven’s 8th Symphony in the elite Chamber Orchestra. William Cabellero was playing first, and I was his second,” Lenhart said.
She and other BYU students impressed faculty members with the training they had received from BYU. After Julliard horn professor Julia Landsman found out that these students were BYU students she exclaimed, “Really? BYU? Well, tell Larry (Lowe) that he’s doing an excellent job.”