William Scharnberg, French Horn

William (Bill) Scharnberg graduated from the University of Iowa with the BM, MA, MFA, and DMA degrees. He studied horn there with Paul Anderson, with summer lessons from Louis Stout and Philip Farkas. As a college sophomore he won the fourth horn position in the Tri-City Symphony (Iowa), graduating to third horn then principal over four years. He has performed as principal horn of the Dallas Opera (1984-2016), Dallas Symphony, Dallas Ballet, Dallas Chamber Orchestra, Tacoma Symphony, Flathead Festival Orchestra, Royal Opera Orchestra (Stockholm), Breckenridge Music Festival, Big Sky Orchestra, Intermountain Opera, and has been principal horn of the Wichita Falls Symphony (Texas) since 2007.
He taught horn, performed in faculty ensembles, and taught various subjects at Central Missouri State University, Pacific Lutheran University, the University of Oklahoma, the Royal Academy of Music (Stockholm), and the University of North Texas (1983-2018), where he retired as a Regents Professor with a horn class of fifty students.
For sixteen years (2003-2020) he was the Editor of  the International Horn Society’s publication The Horn Call. He served the IHS as President (1990-92), Advisory Council member (1986-92 and 1999-2003), music review editor, and hosted two International Horn Symposia (1991 and 2012). He has performed at international and regional horn conventions, in recital at several universities, concerti with regional ensembles, as a chamber musician at several festivals, and recorded on Crystal, EcoClassics, Centaur, and Klavier labels. He commissioned and premiered works by Paul Chihara, David Maslanka, Cindy McTee, Anthony Plog, and Kim Scharnberg. His editions of eighteenth and nineteenth-century horn works are published and he has been a frequent finalist in the Reader’s Digest and Publisher’s Clearinghouse sweepstakes.