Jeff Nelsen Explained

Jeff Nelsen (born December 11, 1969) is a Canadian French horn player. He is solo horn in the Canadian Brass and is Professor of Horn at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN. He has performed in the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, the Montreal Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, and the Chicago, Boston, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and National symphonies.^[1]

Biography

Nelsen is a horn player who has performed for audiences and students around the world. While studying music at McGill University in Montreal, Jeff won an audition for an orchestra. He left school to take the position as fourth horn in the Winnipeg Symphony; the following year he won the audition for fourth horn in the Montreal Symphony.^[2]

Nelsen has toured and recorded on and off for almost 20 years with Canadian Brass, he has performed recitals and concerti with orchestras in North and South America, Asia, Europe and Australia. He was recruited to Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music, where he currently teaches.

Nilsen created a workshop called Fearless Performance, where he addresses common anxieties performing musicians face.^[3] Nelsen shared this seminar as part of a TEDx Talk. He has performed as a part of the orchestra for two Broadway shows (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and "The Pirate Queen"), toured with Michael Bolton and Barry Manilow, recorded of movie soundtracks, and performed in the horn sections of orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago, Boston, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Montreal, Vancouver, and National Symphonies, and the Balkan Gypsy funk band of Slavic Soul Party. With Canadian Brass, Jeff has also performed with the Philadelphia and Cleveland Orchestras, the symphonies of Atlanta, Baltimore, Buffalo, Colorado, Detroit, Houston, Milwaukee, Minnesota, New Jersey, Phoenix, Rotterdam, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto, with the esteemed German, London, and El Sistema brass ensembles, and special annual concerts with the principal brass of the New York Philharmonic and Philadelphia Orchestra.^[4] In December 2012, Nelsen performed with the “Distant Worlds - Final Fantasy 25th Anniversary Concert” in Chicago.

Nelsen has joined the Academy of Magical Arts at the Magic Castle in Los Angeles. Nelsen helped design his own model of Dieter Otto horn (180KA-JN) and his own mouthpiece as well.

Jeff is a member of the International Horn Society's advisory council and the board of directors for the International Horn Competition of America.

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Jeff Nelsen was a huge hit as one of the featured artists at the 37th International Horn Society Symposium (June 2005). He is one of the most dynamic individuals that I have ever worked with, and is among the finest horn players that I have ever heard. If you know Jeff, you are better for it. If you don't know Jeff, you should.

— Skip Snead, Director of the School of Music, University of Alabama