“From figuring out the creepy quirks of Philip Feeney’s chilling ‘Dracula’ score for the Oklahoma City Ballet to learning the harmonica for Missy Mazzoli’s otherworldy ‘Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres)’ for the Oklahoma City Philharmonic’s Classics series, Kate Pritchett’s days are a veritable horn of plenty of musical challenges,” writes Brandy McDonnell in Saturday’s (11/2) Daily Oklahoman. “ ‘It’s hard to imagine having a job where it’s the same thing every day,’ said Pritchett, the Oklahoma City Philharmonic’s principal French horn player. ‘I did that for a while and it was so boring. And that’s when I came back to being a musician.’ Following her brief … detour as a legal secretary, Pritchett finished her master’s degree at the University of North Texas and embarked on her 20-year career as a professional musician. She is the first woman principal in the brass section for the Oklahoma City Philharmonic…. The orchestra’s next two Classics performances will have Pritchett taking on particular challenges: She will be among eight musicians who will swap their usual instruments for harmonicas on Mazzoli’s ‘Sinfonia’ … and she will play a key solo on Dmitri Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1…. strong players like Pritchett have allowed [Music Director Alexander Mickelthwate] freedom in programming.”
Posted November 7, 2019
