Horn player Lauren Hunt is an international musician who creates transformative listening and educational experiences to audiences across four continents.  As principal horn of the Youth Orchestra of the Americas and the Youth Orchestra of Bahia (based in Brazil), Ms. Hunt toured eight countries in Europe and North and South America. She also toured China and Spain with the World Orchestra of Jeunesses Musicales.  Ms. Hunt has presented master classes in Brazil and in Colombia, as well as in the United States.

A consummate orchestral musician, Lauren Hunt performs regularly with the Delphi Chamber Orchestra and the Yale Philharmonia, both based in New Haven, Connecticut.  She was a fellow at the Music Academy of the West in 2011, and is a substitute with the New World Symphony, Symphony in C, and the Cape Cod Symphony.  In 2011, Ms. Hunt performed in the first concert of conductorless string orchestra, A Far Cry, that included winds.

Lauren Hunt is passionate about teaching and is committed to engaging her audiences through community outreach.  She holds a permanent guest teaching artist position with NEOJIBA, an orchestra-based program for young musicians in Salvador, Brazil.  After being awarded the New England Conservatory Entrepreneurial Musicianship Grant, Ms. Hunt traveled to Bogota, Colombia, to present a series of master classes and workshops for conservatory students and other young horn players.  With a chamber ensemble she co-founded, Lauren Hunt became a fellow of the New England Conservatory Community Partnership Program, through which she presented concerts in the community.  In addition to her private teaching studio, Ms. Hunt is currently a teaching artist in the New Haven Public Schools.  She also founded the McLean Chamber Academy, as summer music program for high school students in the Washington DC area, which will have its inaugural season in June 2013.

Ms. Hunt has appeared as a soloist with the McLean Symphony and the American Youth Philharmonic.  She was the first musician ever to win both of the Friday Morning Music Club’s concerto competitions in the same year.  Also active as a chamber musician, Ms. Hunt was a founding member of the award-winning woodwind quintet, the Andra Winds, which was designated as an Honors Chamber Ensemble at the New England Conservatory

In addition to her horn playing, Lauren Hunt is also an accomplished cellist.  A graduate of the National Symphony Orchestra Youth Fellowship Program, Ms. Hunt performed as a soloist with the Army Orchestra “Pershing’s Own” in 2006.  She was also an experienced string chamber musician.  Ms. Hunt was designated as a quarterfinalist in the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, and she attended the Yellow Barn Music Festival’s Young Artists Program.

Lauren Hunt will receive a Master of Music in Horn Performance from the Yale School of Music this May, where she received the Alec Templeton Scholarship and Fellowship.  Ms. Hunt graduated from the New England Conservatory (NEC), where she received a Bachelor of Music in Horn Performance with Highest Honors.  At NEC, she was a recipient of the Lotta Crabtree Educational Fund Scholarship.  Ms. Hunt’s principal teachers include Bill Purvis, Dick Mackey, Jason Snider, and Ted Thayer.

Ms. Hunt is fluent in English, Brazilian Portuguese, and Spanish, and has used all three of these languages for performing and teaching.

This summer, Lauren Hunt will attend the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, and in the fall will begin work towards a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of Georgia in Athens.

Photo copyright 2010 by Thapana Uparanukraw