Richard Bissill
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Richard Bissill is a French horn player, composer and arranger, and Professor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London.
Born in Leicestershire, he was a member of the Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra and he then studied horn and piano at the Royal Academy of Music before joining the London Symphony Orchestra in 1981. In 1984 he was appointed Principal Horn of the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
Since 1990 he has been Solo Horn with London Brass, with whom he has played many new pieces commissioned by the group, including several of his own compositions and arrangements. The ensemble’s work has also included projects with popular music and jazz artists and Bissill has been featured in an improvisatory role many times.
Bissill is known for his involvement in jazz performance. Whilst still a teenager, he played with the BBC Radio Leicester Big Band and later the National Youth Jazz Orchestra with which he made several recordings. His improvisatory abilities and skill in jazz styles are well known throughout the world and he is often selected for sessions or by visiting bands from abroad requiring a horn player who can swing and/or improvise. In this capacity he has worked with Quincy Jones, Lalo Schifrin, Wynton Marsalis, Michel Legrande and many others.
Bissill has also improvised in a non-jazz context, and his recording with the horn players Pip Eastop and Jonathan Williams, Back to Back to Back has achieved legendary status.
As a composer and arranger Bissill is frequently in demand and many of his works for horn have pushed the boundaries of horn technique and what the horn is capable of musically, being challenging but not unapproachable, technically or stylistically.
His intimate knowledge of what is possible on the horn, particularly with regard to the low register of the instrument shows itself in his many works for horn ensemble, including Three Portraits for horn octet and Corpendium 1 for six horns. These works explore technical and coloristic elements unprecedented in existing works for these instrumental groups.
He has also achieved considerable success as a composer of orchestral music, his Christmas Carnival being frequently performed at Christmas and having been recorded by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. His Sinfonia Concertante for clarinet, trumpet, horn and orchestra was commissioned by the London Symphony Orchestra to celebrate its centenary in 2004. This work uses the horn to the best advantage by highlighting the virtuosic nature of the horn soloist in the most suitable and efficient way.
Bissill’s Lone Call and Charge, for solo horn is very frequently performed, not least where a competition, audition or recital stipulates performance of a recently-composed work, as it is highly virtuosic but does not put the performer under unnecessary strain.
Bissill has been a professor of horn at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama since 1983 and many of his students from this period have progressed to successful horn-playing careers throughout the world. He wrote the Good Brass Guide for horn and this has become a very successful and popular tutor.
