Thanks! You'll now receive emails from us!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
Fantasia Feature - Zoë Tweed
2
May
2025
With our return to Newbury Spring Festival next month, we caught up with Zoë Tweed, Fantasia regular and our horn soloist for the concert, to talk about Mozart’s iconic concerto and the influences that have shaped her musical journey.
When did you first start playing the Horn, and who has inspired you along the way?
I started playing the horn age 9 after my trombone teacher Alan Hutt recommended I make the switch. I didn’t know what it even looked like before my first lesson! My first French Horn teacher was Simon de Souza and he often played me recordings of famous horn players, and I was always most excited by Radovan Vlatkovic.
I had the opportunity to play for Radovan in one of his masterclasses at the Royal Academy of Music while I studied there, which was a dream come true for me. I think I will always look towards Radovan as the epitome of a beautiful French horn sound. He continues to be a huge inspiration for me. While I studied at the Academy I was also taught by Katy Woolley. I have literally filled notebooks with all the amazing techniques, concepts and methods she taught me, and she helped me to become my own teacher and to experiment objectively in my own practice.
Mozart's Horn Concerto no.4 was written for the natural horn, how does that influence your interpretation on a modern instrument?
It’s always important when playing classical pieces to remember how the horn likely sounded for those composers. Maybe the horn playing was extremely delicate but it seems more likely that it was played with vigour and humour (especially in Mozart’s case). It helps us to play Mozart with more courage and less like it might break if we don’t tread carefully.
It’s easy to fall into this trap as a horn player especially. In practical terms. it’s also important to know which notes would have been stopped (effectively a method of tuning correction which changed the colour of the note as well as the pitch) and how that would have affected your choice of phrasing and articulation.
If you could ask Mozart one question about this concerto, what would it be?
'What do you think about the lyrics to the Flanders and Swan version of the last movement?'
I would ask him how many more notes he would have added if he’d written it for the normal horn.
I'd then ask him whether, given the choice, he'd opt for the natural horn (more limited choice of notes but more variation in the sound) or the modern horn (fully chromatic and more techniques available).
What music do you like listening to beyond classical?
At the moment I’m listening to a lot of Jacob Collier, Sabrina Carpenter and for the nostalgia, Mika. I like a fairly broad range of styles but I’ve always had a soft spot for Alternative Pop music. Any and all folk too.
Tickets are on sale for our programme at Newbury Spring Festival on Thu 22 May 2025, 7:30pm.