Professor Barry Tuckwell, AC, OBE, (born 1931) is an Australian French horn player who spent much of his working life in the UK. Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, wearing on her left shoulder the Order of Australias Sovereign Badge. ... Commanders Badge of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) is a British order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by King George V. The Order includes five classes in civil and military divisions; in decreasing order of seniority, these... 1931 (MCMXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link is to a full 1931 calendar). ... The horn is a brass instrument consisting of tubing wrapped into a coiled form. ...

He was born in Melbourne and joined the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra at 15, only a year after starting on the horn. He became a horn player because of a chance conversation he overheard at the age of 13 between his elder sister, Sir Charles Mackerras and a horn-playing colleague in the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. His sister was wondering out loud what to do with him. He was obviously musical; he must be able to play something. The horn player suggested the horn, and so he tried it. "A piece of cake! Only one note at a time!" - drawing a wry smile from players of the notoriously fickle French Horn. Melbourne is the state capital and largest city in the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-largest city in Australia (after Sydney), with a population of approximately 3. ... The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra was founded by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 1934 as one of its radio orchestras. ...

Tuckwell attended St Andrew's Cathedral School, Sydney, where he was a chorister in the cathedral choir, and Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Via Crucis Via Lucis (The Way of the Cross is the Way of Light) St Andrews Cathedral School in an Anglican day school (Years K-12) in the heart of the city of Sydney, Australia, with a co-educational Senior College (years 10-12). ... A choir or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. ... A cathedral is a Christian church building, specifically of a denomination with an episcopal hierarchy, such as the Anglican, Catholic and some Lutheran churches, which serves as the central church of a diocese, and thus as a bishops seat. ... The Sydney Conservatorium of Music (formerly the New South Wales State Conservatorium of Music) is a faculty of the University of Sydney in Australia. ...

While playing in Sydney he was encouraged to travel to take advantage of the greater opportunities available outside his native Australia and settled on England as a convenient location, being in Europe but also English-speaking. He arrived on a cold January day and wondered what he had let himself in for.

His rise through the British orchestras was meteoric, moving in rapid succession from the Scottish Symphony to the Halle and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestras before settling as principal horn player with the London Symphony for 13 years, a position originally vacated as a result of an artistic dispute between players and management. Tuckwell served as musicians representative on the board of the LSO. Any horn player of the time was inevitably compared to the legendary Dennis Brain, and Tuckwell was close to both Dennis and his father Aubrey, but although his style was influenced by Brain, Tuckwell's own self-criticism led him to develop a different and distinct sound. There are two famous pieces of music known as the London Symphony: by Joseph Haydn; see Symphony No. ... // Dennis Brain (1921-05-17 – 1957-09-01) was a highly distinguished British horn player and was largely responsible for popularizing the idea that the horn could be used as a solo instrument. ...

He resigned that position with some regrets to pursue a solo career; although he never intended to give up orchestral playing he was so much in demand that few opportunities subsequently arose. He has become the most recorded of all horn players and has won three Grammy awards. He has been president of the International Horn Society and is currently honorary president of the British Horn Society. Grammy Award statuette The Grammy Awards, presented by the Recording Academy (an association of Americans professionally involved in the recorded music industry) for outstanding achievements in the recording industry, is one of four major music awards shows held annually in the United States (the Billboard Music Awards, the American Music...

A number of composers have written works for him, including Oliver Knussen and Richard Rodney Bennett. Oliver Knussen (born June 12, 1952) is a British composer and conductor. ... Sir Richard Rodney Bennett (born March 29, 1936) is a British composer. ...

After retirement in 1996 he settled in the United States and founded the Maryland Symphony Orchestra. He now lives in Australia. A friend has said he wanted to hear Tuckwell's last note as a professional player, but the ever-mischievous Tuckwell decided on the spur of the moment to omit it. He now sums up his career as having "missed my first note, and omitted the last".

He wrote a book, The French Horn in the Yehudi Menuhin series, and has also written horn studies and a guide to playing the horn (out of print but much in demand). Yehudi Menuhin album cover The Right Honourable Yehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin, OM, KBE (April 22, 1916 – March 12, 1999) was a Jewish American-born violinist, violist, and conductor who spent most of his performing career in the United Kingdom. ...

In his first appearances since his 1997 Baltimore farewell performance, Barry Tuckwell returned to the stage to perform Schumann's Konzertstuck for Four Horns in Melbourne at the Methodist Ladies' College and Daylesford, Victoria, Australia in April 2006. (The performances, with Melbourne's longest running amateur orchestra, the Zelman Memorial Symphony Orchestra conducted by Mark Shiell, also featured three of Australia's finest French Horn players: Geoff Collinson, Roman Ponamariov and Lin Jiang.) Methodist Ladies College (commonly referred to simply as MLC) is an independent school for girls in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. ...

Trivia

Tuckwell's sister is Patricia Lascelles, Countess of Harewood. Patricia Lascelles (born 24 November 1926) is an Australian violinist and is the Countess of Harewood. ...

Honours

Tuckwell was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1965 and a Companion of the Order of Australia in 1992. Commanders Badge of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) is a British order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by King George V. The Order includes five classes in civil and military divisions; in decreasing order of seniority, these... Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, wearing on her left shoulder the Order of Australias Sovereign Badge. ...

He was made an honorary Doctor of Music by the University of Sydney and has been awarded distinctions by the Royal Academy of Music, the Royal College of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. An honorary degree (Latin: honoris causa ad gradum) is an extra-ordinary academic degree awarded to an individual as a decoration, rather than as the result of matriculating and studying for several years. ... The Doctor of Music degree (D.Mus. ... The University of Sydney, established in Sydney in 1850, is the oldest university in Australia. ... The Royal Academy of Music is a music school in London, England and one of the leading music institutions in the world. ... // The Royal College of Music from Prince Consort Road, London The Royal College of Music is a prestigious music school located in Kensington, London. ... The GSMD seen across the Barbican lake. ...