NATCHITOCHES – Northwestern State University Professor of Horn Dr. Kristine Coreil, will present a recital of horn pieces “Of War and Peace,” Wednesday, October 9 at 7:30 p.m. in Magale Recital Hall. The recital is free and open to the public.
Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts piano instructor, Dr. Charles Jones, will join Coreil in the iconic “Hindemith Sonata for Horn and Piano,” written in 1939 at the start of the World War II. Coreil will also perform two pieces on the classical era natural horn, or horn without valves. Both pieces are modern compositions but written for the historical instrument.
Coreil premiered one of these pieces, “Epitaph IX: U.S.S. Arizona,” at the International Horn Symposium in Ghent, Belgium, in July 2019. This piece was written for Coreil, and features a drone recording of the peal of the actual bell from the U.S.S. Arizona. This battleship sunk during the Pearl Harbor attack, and serves as a memorial, still holding the remains of the sailors who died in that fight. The ship’s bell was resurrected and rings at the University of Arizona. British composer Martin Ellerby was so moved by the memorial of the U.S.S. Arizona, that he visited the bell in Arizona, recorded the bell’s toll and composed a moving epitaph in memoriam.
In the second half of the recital, Coreil and Jones will be joined by NSU woodwind faculty in a rousing sextet by Francis Poulenc. Joining the stage will be Kelsey McDonald on flute, Leah Forsyth on oboe, clarinetist Dr. Malena McLaren, and bassoonist Dr. Douglas Bakenhus. This piece celebrates post-war France with delightful melodies, fanciful jaunty dance tunes and a whirling conclusion of fun and whimsy, said Coreil.
Coreil teaches horn at Northwestern State and conducts the NSU Horn Choir. She is a member of both the Shreveport Symphony Orchestra and the Rapides Symphony, and also performs regularly with the Marshall Symphony, the Shreveport Opera and Ballet, South Arkansas Symphony and Texarkana Symphony. She has also performed with the Longview Symphony, the Lake Charles Symphony, Baroque Artists of Austin, the Beloit-Janesville Symphony (Wisconsin), the Madison Chamber Orchestra (Wisconsin), the Upper Peninsula Festival Orchestra (Michigan), and the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra (California). Coreil received the Doctor of Musical Arts in Horn Performance degree from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, studying with horn professor Douglas Hill; the Master of Music in Horn Performance degree from Northwestern University in Illinois, studying with Dale Clevenger; and the Bachelor of Music Education degree from Northwestern State, studying with Richard Jennings.
She is a specialist on the classical era natural horn and performs on a 1722 Halari model Seraphinoff natural horn in Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina and the United Kingdom. She was awarded the 2005 Mildred Hart Bailey Research Award for her research and performances on the natural horn.
