Faculty and Staff
Dr. Willard Zirk, French Horn
Department of Music & Dance
Eastern Michigan University
Ypsilanti, MI 48197
(734) 487-1260
wzirk@emich.edu
Willard Zirk currently serves as professor of horn at Eastern Michigan University, a position he has held since 1980. He is principal horn with the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra and hornist with the EMU Eastern Winds woodwind quintet. As a former hornist with the United States Army Band, Pershing's Own, in Washington D.C., he appeared as a soloist with the Band on the Capitol steps. He has performed with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Tafelmusik, based in Toronto, Apollo's Fire, based in Cleveland, the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, based in San Francisco, and with the Classical Band and the Grande Bande, both period instrument orchestras based in New York. His study with Lowell Greer and Louis Stout has led to an active role in natural horn performance and horn building.
Willard Zirk earned a music education degree from Michigan State University, studying horn with Douglas Campbell. While in the Army Band he earned a masters of horn performance from The Catholic University of America, studying with Lynden Mitchell, and in 1989, earned a doctor of musical arts from the University of Michigan, studying with Louis Stout and Lowell Greer. His interest in horn building has led to grants from Eastern Michigan University to build a copy of an antique natural horn and a little horn for young people. He has recorded the Mozart Horn Concertos 2 and 3 for Music Minus One, Brandenburg 1 with Apollo's Fire, and his latest disc, A Horn Museum, is a recording of his favorite music for horn and piano. Most recently, he created a DVD of beginning horn instruction.
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