Donald Huang <[email protected]> wrote: So I found out a few weeks ago that my school's doing Cats for our spring musical and I'm not sure if I should be excited; I'm guessing the horn parts should be pretty good considering that Andrew Lloyd Webber composed it. I guess my main questions are (1) how are the horn parts in general and (2) how many horn parts are there?
First, I don't actually know anything about the horn parts of this BWay musical, but quite possibly there are zero horn parts. In recent modern times musicals are constrained one one side by finances, and on the other side by union contracts. From my unreliable (and perhaps out-of-date) Memories (sic) BWay productions are required to employ no fewer than 12 musicians. Since they must pay 12, they are generally scored for 12, but rarely more. But there may be alternative orchestrations for especially popular (another word for "profitable") shows. I dunno... As a personal note, my former roommate from back in the 1970's, an occasional horn player but mostly a conductor, spent a great many years as the principal conductor of Cats in BWay. I believe he has conducted Memories more times than any other member of our species. (I mean the human species, not the horn player species, most of whom are indeed also human.) This is not something for which he would like to be remembered. For him, Cats was a way to work 3-4 services a week earning a living wage for NYC, while allowing him to pursue other musical interests as he wished. _______________________________________________ post: [email protected] unsubscribe or set options at https://pegasus.memphis.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
