About George’s latest passion, the horn playing
George always felt very much attracted to people who were devoted to their activities, professional or non-professional.
His wife is one of these passionate non-professional natural horn players who are so very dedicated and ambitious.
The horn sound and the special myth about it and the horn playing must have intrigued George very much and soon a baroque horn (a horn from the famous horn maker Daniel Kunst in Bremen) found its way to him.
By exploring and getting familiar with the natural horn literature and the horn community in Cape Town, he discovered the natural horn playing was not very common in South Africa. The wish was born to form a natural horn group and work on natural horn repertoire with other passionate horn players.
Because of George’s charisma and the contact to talented students at UCT and also in the New Apostolic Church, a group of five was quickly formed and regularly got together for rehearsals.
The group made its first (still a bit shaky) appearance at the famous Groote Kerk Advent concert. The most remarkable thing in this little performance was that George, who was a total horn beginner played the solo part and played it so well as if he was putting all his singing talent and experience, vibrato and all kinds of techniques into his solo.
George’s horn family soon grew to three members, he found an antique horn (Uhlmann ca. 1820 which was probably played at the times of Brahms) and a parforce horn (also a Daniel Kunst build).
When he was not working or performing he was playing horn non stop. He climbed up the mountains with his horns on his back and played in the open which is the hunting horn tradition and wherever he played, attracted a crowd of hikers.
He was constantly trying to find venues for performances especially churches since the St. Hubertus mass was on his mind all the time.
Now all his horns have remained in Cape Town with the horn group called „The Funting horns“ (the „Funters“ are Brent Patterson, Frances Coetzer, Clinton Muller and Gene Kierman).
