[Trombone-l] Our Own Ray Horton!/long links

[Phil Burton]

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Phil
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Sunday, November 11, 2007 

Dale Moss Composer caught up in music, and loves it 

An early-on teacher proclaimed it: Raymond Horton's lips are too big for the trumpet. Thus, Horton plays trombone. 

He plays it well, his lips being but one reason why. Horton joined the Louisville Orchestra 37 years ago, at age 18. He could move on to New York or Chicago or any bigger city, should he ever decide to do so. 

He will not, by the way. 

When Horton wants more, when he is ready for new challenges, he writes tunes like he wishes trombonists -- not just trumpeters -- routinely got to carry. One of those blessed types with smaller lips, Jerry Amend, considers Horton better at creating even than performing. 

"He's an absolute genius at music composition and arranging," said Amend, another longtime Louisville Orchestra member. "If he had a great PR guy, he'd be famous." 



Horton has Amend, though, and Amend also is musical director of the Commonwealth Brass Band. 

That group performs an Americana concert today, on Veterans Day, at the Ogle Center at Indiana University Southeast in New Albany. A Horton original called "An Amish Crazy Quilt" is on the bill, Horton at the baton. He also will lead his arrangement of "America The Beautiful." 

"I'm not a polished conductor," he said. 

"But I'm exuberant." 

Horton, of Floyds Knobs, is 55, neither too old for exuberance nor to make his mark as a composer. 

He won grants from the Indiana Arts Commission both for the Amish piece and for one to be performed by the Louisville Orchestra during its Martin Luther King Day concert in January. 

Horton is to write a more thorough composition for his orchestra's 2009-2010 season, as well. 

Horton's brilliance shines more commonly Sundays at Edwardsville United Methodist Church. He is music minister. He toys and tinkers with the traditional sounds, spicing worship without overwhelming it. The Rev. Beverly Perry welcomes the variety that Horton provides. He's not just into "egghead kind of music," she puts it. 

"I tell the people, 'We don't know what's going to happen,' " she said. "And that's the joy of it." 

Horton grew up in Louisville with a couple of sisters who took piano lessons not offered to him. He borrowed their lesson books, tried his hand at the keyboard before coming of age to join the school band. He first played euphonium -- also called the baritone -- which is the trombone's bass-clef cousin. 

"I couldn't wait to play after school," Horton said. 

Horton earned a chair in the Jeffersontown High School band while in seventh grade. He switched to trombone two years later, took to it likewise wonderfully. He auditioned for the Louisville Orchestra before graduating. 

If only there had been an opening, not that he had long to wait. Specializing in bass trombone -- essentially, a horn with extra tubing -- he became the orchestra's youngest musician when he joined. 

Horton composed some in high school, bored by the complementary parts often written for his section. He said he never finished a piece, yet he obviously maintained an interest. One of his college degrees is in music composition. The orchestra has performed several of his creations. 

Horton has written off and on, clearly more on than off in the past decade or so. "He'll crank them out at night -- he's a machine," said tuba player Daryl Johnson of Horton's arrangements. 

Johnson plays alongside Horton in the Louisville Orchestra's back row. He said Horton seems always to be writing, or reading, feeding his ample brain. 

"It's just a constant education for me to sit next to him," Johnson said. 

Horton's wife, Terry Horton, is principal at Our Lady of Perpetual Help School in New Albany. Musically gifted herself, she intends to strike up a band there. She will rely, too, on her husband's involvement, of course. 

"He does just live and breathe music," she said. "I can't imagine him doing anything else." 

She agrees his composing could be better appreciated, that by staying local his talents might be taken for granted. Meanwhile, Raymond Horton pushes on, encouraged by the opportunities that do come. His three-movement Amish work -- a reflection of the musical influences in the lives of that sizable group in Indiana -- took extraordinary digging. The Amish tend to be reluctant to share their world, after all. Yet Horton was fascinated by the group, and took this on. 

Horton's piece for the King birthday is accompanied by excerpts from a powerful speech that a campaigning Robert Kennedy gave in Indianapolis the night that King was killed in Memphis, Tenn. 

Horton welcomes more such chances. Trumpet that. 

"I'm trying to write music I would like to play," he said. 

Today's concert begins at 3 p.m. Tickets are $7; $5 for senior citizens and students. 

Dale Moss' column appears on Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Reach him at (812) 949-4026 or dmoss at courier-journal.com. Comment on this column, and read his blog and previous columns, at www.courier-journal.com/moss. 




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