Chetham’s student 1994 – 2002
In January 2005, at the age of 21, Angela Barnes was appointed Second Horn of the London Symphony Orchestra, becoming the first female member of the orchestra’s brass section in the orchestra’s hundred-year history. She has worked regularly with most of the major British orchestras, appearing as Guest Principal with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. Her career combines orchestral, solo and chamber music playing.
As well as featuring in the second installment of the Cala Records ‘‘London Horn Sound’’ series, she can be heard performing with the LSO Wind and Brass Ensembles. She has also recently recorded Britten’s Canticle for Tenor, Horn and Piano, with tenor Allan Clayton, as part of the BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists scheme.
Angela began horn lessons with her mother at the age of eight, before entering Chetham’s School of Music, in 1994 to study with Elizabeth Davis. She then went on to study with Hugh Seenan, Richard Bissill, Jeff Bryant and Jonathan Lipton at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, graduating with a First Class Honours degree in July 2005. Her numerous solo and chamber music performances have included the finale from Mozart’s Fourth Horn Concerto with the Hallé at The Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, Strauss’s Second Horn Concerto with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra in the Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool, Schubert’s Octet with members of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain at the Cheltenham International Festival, and Poulenc’s Sextet for piano and wind as a member of the Guildhall Gold Ensemble at the Wigmore Hall, London. Angela was a member of both the National Youth Orchestra and the European Union Youth Orchestra, with which she toured extensively throughout Europe, and is currently the Principal Horn with the Lancashire Sinfonietta.
Angela has enjoyed considerable success in competitions. In 1999, aged 15, she reached the final 12 in the Shell/LSO Brass Scholarship, and later that year she won the brass section of the Lancashire Young Musician competition. Angela was a brass finalist in the BBC Young Musician of the Year 2000, and a finalist in the British section of the Paxman Horn Competition. Two years later, she won the Liverpool Young Musician Competition, and was a concerto finalist in the BBC Young Musician of the Year 2002. Her performance of Strauss’s Second Horn Concerto with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Andrew Davis in the Barbican Hall, London, was televised on BBC2. This success resulted in a tour of the United Arab Emirates with the other finalists. Highlights this season have included performances of Schumann’s Konzertstuck for Four Horns and Orchestra with the BBC Philharmonic in Manchester’s The Bridgewater Hall, and of Brahms’ Horn Trio with pianist Martin Roscoe and violinist Nicholas Wright as part of the Ribble Valley International Piano Week.
