On Saturday 12th October, award-winning Italian horn player Silvia Bettoli joins us fresh from her studies – with full scholarship – on the prestigious Professional Diploma at the Royal Academy of Music. She has performed with several leading youth orchestras in Europe, and her first recording with a chamber orchestra led by Barbara Hannigan, Stravinsky: Dumbarton Oaks, is released on Linn Records later this year.
She will perform Mozart’s celebrated 4th Horn Concerto at a special concert honouring 90 years of the 3rd Jersey Scout Group. We hope you can join us!
Tell us about your background and growing up in Italy
I was born in northern Italy 23 years ago and I grew up in a village located next to the stunning lake Iseo and surrounded by mountains. Nature has always been important to me: sometimes I love to go in the forest and spend hours there practising without being bothered by anything but the sound of the wind that blows between the trees.
You began your musical studies with your father Paolo when you were 9: amazing! What was that like? How did you eventually settle on the French Horn?
When I was young, I actually wasn't into music. In my family there are several amateur musicians and my father is a music teacher and a trumpet player. I used to see this art as something that was keeping my family apart from me. But in the years something changed. I started to attend as a listener the rehearsals of the wind band where my family plays, and I also started to follow my father to his musical summer campus: two weeks where a lot of young musicians meet to improve their musical skills. I made a lot of friendships and I begun to consider playing an instrument. Around 8 years I told my father that I didn't want to be the only one not a musician and I asked him to advise me in the choice of the instrument:he recommended me the French Horn. Not gonna lie, I had no idea what it was, but I trusted my father and I still don't regret this choice. I used to practice a lot: hours and hours until the exercises were perfect, it was like a personal satisfaction. My family has always supported me and my father has been my teacher for the first years (actually, still now he is always keeping an eye on my path). I still remember some fights we had in the past during my lessons with him (we have both strong personalities), but if I am where I am now is mostly thank to him. I'm really grateful about the job we did together.
Are there any horn players or other musicians that have inspired you along your own journey as an artist?
In my path I've been so lucky because I met several horn players and musicians that inspired me. I got to work with professional musicians from all around the world. One of the experiences that mostly inspired me was playing in EUYO (the European Union Youth Orchestra). The energy, the level, the motivation and especially the friendship between the members of the orchestra were the ingredients for perfect teamwork. We spent hours practising together, doing rehearsal, playing for fun. I remember the tour we did in summer 2022: we had lots of dramas that year and just before our first concert with The Rite of Spring in Bolzano, most of us were very sad, some were even crying, BUT when we started to play, someone started to smile. In that moment I realised how powerful a simple gesture as a smile can completely change the mood of an entire orchestra. Bar after bar the number of people smiling to each other increased and at the end I think we had one of the best concerts ever. After that night, smile is what I do even when I'm sitting in a section. Our job can be very stressful sometimes and this, in my opinion, is the best way to help each other to enjoy what we are doing having fun.
You have won many prize competitions both at home and abroad. Tell us about some of the highlights.
Talking about prize competitions, I've done quite a lot of stuff when I was younger and I'm planning to do more in the future. Getting used to perform in front of an audience is very important to learn how to control thoughts and anxiety and the best way to learn how to do it is just with a lot of practice. My family has always come to support me and cheer for me and this is very important. There are moments where the panel likes your playing and moments where it doesn’t, but all these competitions made me understand that the most important thing is to keep believing in myself, because music is an art and everyone will always have different opinions and ideas. This is what makes everything more special.
You’ve just completed studying at the faculty of Professional Diploma at the Royal Academy of Music. Did you enjoy your time studying there, as well as living and working in London?
London was an unexpected step of my life. Everything happened so quickly! I was doing the audition for EUYO in 2021 and in the panel there was the principal horn of BBC, Martin Owen. He was extremely enthusiastic about my playing and for this reason he decided, with his colleagues, to invite me to join the horn class of the Royal Academy of Music. They offered me a full scholarship, how could I refuse it? London is, of course, a dream for a lot of people and having the chance of spending two years there is something I will always be thankful for. My teachers, Martin Owen, Michael Thompson, Richard Watkins and David Pyatt are all very important names of the horn world. Each one of them taught me something that made my playing improving day by day. I loved the time spent in the Academy also because all the projects I had the chance to do while I was there: I played several times as principal horn with the Academy's orchestra and I did some very cool side by side projects.
London is a beautiful city that offers a lot: you can find everything at any time of the day. I really enjoyed running by its canals and walks around the parks. It’s a huge international capital that is very well connected also with other continental cities, so I found very easy moving around everything I had concerts abroad. I wouldn’t mind in the future to spend more time there. Talking about jobs, everything is different compared to Italy: for example, I got used to work with people that come from all around the world with different backgrounds. Sometimes we could understand each other just using “music language”. I also had to play for bigger audiences in bigger theatres and I got used to hear conductors struggling pronouncing Italian’s words such as “acciaccatura”, “tutti”, “pianississimo” (to adapt myself to the local habits I ended up pronouncing these words in the same way LOL).
Mozart’s 4th Horn Concerto is easily one of the most recognisable pieces in the horn repertoire. What’s it like to perform? What should audiences look out for when it is performed here with Jersey Chamber Orchestra on Saturday 12th October?
Mozart wrote five concertos for natural horn. Nowadays, unfortunately, we just have four of them, the fifth disappeared. On the 12th I’m going to play probably the most known of all of these, the fourth one. It was written in Vienna, around 1785 and it was dedicated to Joseph Leitgeb, a horn player. He was a good musician: Mozart respected him and was a friend but he had a joking relationship that seems a bit harsh to us today. On the original score his first concerto, also written for Leitgeb, Mozart writes “Adagio a lei signor asino” that in Italian means “Adagio for you Mr Donkey” and at the end “Grazie al cielo, basta, basta!” (Thanks God, stop, stop!). The original score of the 4th concerto is written using different pen colours: we don’t know if this was to help or confuse the player!
The concerto opens with a virtuosic Allegro, where prevails a cordial and mellow melodisation. Follows the Andante with its lyrical tenderness and the Rondo, characterised by the brilliance and transparency of the all-Viennese sound. This Rondo, written according to the rules of Mozart’s prodigious invention, is probably my favourite piece. It’s written in 6/8 and it’s a real Chassé (a type of dance step) where the original nature of the hunting instrument emerges in a brazen way, especially in the winking blasts of the soloist just before the cadenza. A festive Tutti concludes the composition.
Your first recording of Stravinsky’s chamber music, out with Linn Records and led by contemporary classical star Barbara Hannigan, is out on 4th October. What was it like to take part? Can you give us an overview of the music on the album?
Working with Barbara Hannigan was just amazing. She is a concentration of energy, and she loves contemporary music. This means that we spent the rehearsal days working very hard on tiny details obtaining every time an extremely high-level result. I had the chance of playing a couple of times conducted by her, and together we also did a recording last year that includes Dumbarton Oaks by Stravinsky. I had a great time playing with another horn player from the Juilliard School of Music (New York), sharing ideas and thoughts. The headmaster of the Royal Academy was also there checking the score and the recording process. It was a very intense afternoon but at the end we were all very satisfied.
Are you looking forward to joining us again in Jersey? Have you got any plans for when you come to visit?
I joined the Jersey Chamber Orchestra for the first time in February 2023, when we played the Last Four Songs of Strauss. That was an unforgettable concert! From that moment I fell in love with the island and all the people that work and contribute to make all these projects possible. I will do my best to keep the connections here and coming for the future projects.
Even though I’ve been there other times, I never went to the zoo and to visit the war remnants present on the island so I hope I will have some spare time to do it this time.
What are your ambitions/plans for 2025?
2025 is arriving very soon and I have a lot of projects going on. I’m doing several auditions in Italy, Germany and UK for orchestral positions and for youth orchestras. In the same countries I’m going to have a lot of concerts and some of them are going to be very exciting. I’m also promoting my trio, Trio Punto composed by Samuel Cutajar (violin), Jamie Cochrane (piano) and myself. And of course, everything will be accompanied by a lot of practice ☺
Come and hear Silvia perform Mozart’s 4th Horn Concerto with the Jersey Chamber Orchestra on Saturday 12th October: tickets are available via the link below!
