Daniel Katzen A Hornist's L.A. Story Cornucopia, January 1997

Playing in a major US orchestra has some benefits in addition to the obvious making of music on a consistently high level. One is the opportunity to take a sabbatical after serving ten years. My seventeenth year as second horn in the BSO was spent with my family in Pasadena CA, outside of Los Angeles. While there, I experienced some aspects of a freelancer's life.

My former connections with three of the busiest LA horn players led to my breaking into the circle of working musicians more easily than if I had moved there cold; my being a member of the BSO, surprisingly, didn't carry as much weight. When I first arrived, I called my colleagues, who in turn told contractors I was in town and to use me when a need arose. I would get called to replace a player on one or two of the five days needed to record a film score, for instance. I also got hired to fill in with some of the local orchestras when a member was absent, or for an extended section.

The other horn players on the various jobs treated me as a new person with a story, more than as a member of a major horn section. Consequently, when the section filled up, I sat wherever there was an open seat. There was no preferential treatment. Film studio seating is done democratically; after the first few chairs are filled by the busier players, the rest of the section is "first come-first served." Symphony seating is, on the other hand, predetermined. When the contractor calls, you are hired for a particular part. This was, to me, a preferred method, since you knew your chair wouldn't be in dispute.

Most of the musicians in the LA freelance world work very hard, if they are working at all. Ten to fifteen services a week is not an uncommon workload. Often they will record film music for six or seven hours, then rush off to teach or rehearse with "their" orchestra. Each person has a unique schedule with jobs put together by means of their years on the circuit. Typically, their time is 75% film work, 25% symphonic, teaching, solos, etc.

I was well treated in general. It was a curious mix of interest in life in a Big Five orchestra along with acknowledgment that I was a newcomer, in town only temporarily. I consider it a valuable insight into another part of our music profession.

Danny Katzen is well-known in Boston for his fifteen years (as of 1997) as second horn in the BSO, but did you know that it was his forty-eighth (and last) audition that got him the BSO job? Danny claims that he's the world's foremost audition-taker, and he challenges anyone to try to top his record. He gives masterclasses in audition-taking.
Danny grew up in Rochester NY, studying at Eastman through high school, then studied with Michael Hoeltzel and Philip Farkas at Indiana University and Dale Clevenger in Chicago. The path to Boston then wended its way through Europe, Israel, Phoenix, and San Diego. Danny teaches at BU and NEC.
Danny on Bach's Cello Suites

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