The Cormont Horn Camp curriculum serves each participant where they are in their horn journey—high school, college, professional, amateur, returning to horn. Cormont Horn Camp helps you become a better player while creating lifelong bonds.

One of the strengths of Cormont Horn Camp is the small faculty to participant ratio. With a 4-to-1 ratio of participants to faculty members, each participant has meaningful time with many faculty members, getting each faculty member’s take on good playing habits. Participants are placed in groups of 4-6 of similar ability and goals.

The sample schedule of a day at Cormont Horn Camp below shows the detailed and personal work each participant enjoys at Cormont Horn Camp – and how each participant can use this time and attention to help them where they are on their horn journey.

8:00 Warm-Up

Choose between the Cormont Standardized Warm-Up, led by the Artistic Director and the Associate Artistic Director, and a specialty warm-up given each morning by a different faculty member.

9:00 Fundamentals

Daily work on the foundations of horn playing, led by the Bernhard Scully, Artistic Director.

10:00 Natural Horn

Daily work on the valveless natural horn gives us a window into the horn’s rich history, performing the natural horn teaches you things the valved horn cannot.

11:00 Masterclass

Your small group meets with a different faculty member each time. Play for feedback, work through exercises, or dig into a topic the group chooses. Each day also has an orchestral excerpt of the day. You can choose to work on it in masterclass and in your lessons, and it leads into the mock audition later in the week.

12:00 Lunch

Take a break and enjoy conversations with other participants, faculty, and staff.

1:00 Lesson, Solo Coaching, or Alexander Technique

These rotate through the week. Every participant has two private lessons with two different faculty members, solo coaching with a faculty coach and our pianist, and Alexander Technique in one large group session and one small group session.

2:00 Horn Choir

Daily rehearsal with a faculty coach, working toward the end-of-week concerts.

3:00-5:30 Free Time

Practice, play quartets, walk the campus, swim in the lake, take a nap, or sit and talk horn. At 4:30 there is an optional Natural Horn Choir.

5:30 Dinner

Enjoy the comradery of Cormont Horn Camp at dinner with other participants, faculty, and staff.

7:00 Evening Session

The whole camp comes together: the faculty and staff recital, special topics, the mock audition, Clam Night, and on the last two evenings, the participant concerts.