Hornist, composer, and performance clinician LYDIA LOWERY BUSLER began her performing career at age 16 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and composing career at the same time writing for high school dance troupes. Lydia has since performed with the New York City Ballet, Brooklyn Philharmonic, José Limón Dance Company, and Manhattan Chamber Orchestra, as well as holding the position of Solo Horn with the Rome Festival Opera. Ms. Busler has formed collaborative partnerships with pianists Elizabeth Metcalfe, Simone Dinnerstein and Mary Au, violinists Raymond Karl Malone and Jose Miguel Cueto, percussionist Dov Michael Schiller and the Tradewinds Improv Ensemble, tubist Tony Clements, bassist Glenn Smith, and hornist Jeffrey Agrell. Lydia received a spotlight in the San Francisco Classical Voice for the many performances of her solo tour of Bay Area in April and May of 2013, including a solo engagements with the Mission Peak Brass Band, the Ohlone Wind Symphony, and a solo extravaganza highlighting Lydia as performer, composer, and improvisationalist at Stanford University. Lydia was nominated in 2014 to ACME: Mu Phi Epsilon's list of esteemed Artists, Composers, Musicologists and Educators, for her outstanding credentials as a composer, performing artist, and clinician in the United States and abroad. Lydia plays a Lewis and Duerk x5 horn and is a Siegfried's Call Artist. Lydia was nominated in 2014 to ACME: Mu Phi Epsilon's list of esteemed Artists, Composers, Musicologists and Educators, for her outstanding credentials as a composer, performing artist, and clinician in the United States and abroad.
Soloist, lyric improvisationalist, clinician: "Rewiring Your Brain for Joy on Stage!", and composer (ASCAP), Lydia's compositions are performed by artists around the world. In honor of the 2011 Year of the Vermont Composer, Lydia was awarded by the Consortium of Vermont Composers for the war-time opera One Way In, written with the late playwright Lars Nielsen, and by the International Horn Society Meir Rimon Commissioning Fund for Lanterns, commissioned for and performed across the continent by the ZINKALI trio. In the same year, Lydia's vocal/instrumental folk work Thirteen Feathers and Thirteen Stones was performed at the Vermont Statehouse for the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers and Journale was composed for and premiered by flutist Aleksandr Haskin with pianist Mary Au at the Nixon Library in Los Angeles.
Highlighting notable performances, hornist Howard Wall just released a new recording of Appalachia on his album called Horn Monologues on Affetto/Naxos. A new recording called Music for Women with violinist Elmira Darvarova and hornist Howard Wall will be released in May 2020 on Affetto/Naxos. Appalachia is being recreated by young female powerhouses Mary Beth Orr and Sam Gowen on stage and in video. Tina Barkan at the 92nd St Y in NYC has performed a new work in 2020 called Path and Pinnacle for flute, horn, and piano. Reverence premiered in 2019 and is a work for flute, horn, bass, and piano for Ellie Jenkins at Dalton State University. Metalwerx continues to feature great contemporary music, doing winter 2020 lunchtime performances; Irrational Happiness for the Metalwerx Tuba Quartet first premiered in 2017 and Metalwerx continued with the premiere of Deep in 2019. El Sombrero Atrapado for horn and cello was performed up and down the eastern seaboard by a number of performers in 2015 and 2016. The acapella choir Syrinx premiered Throwing Seeds to the Wind at Saint Pauls Cathedral on Lake Champlain in Burlington, Vermont and continued to bring it to venues throughout 2015. Violist Elizabeth Reid and pianist Alison Cerutti commissioned, premiered, recorded, and performed on WGDR The Scree Dragon throughout 2014. In April 2013, the Vermont Contemporary Music Ensemble premiered The Meadow is Gone for flute, clarinet, bassoon, triangle, guitar, cello, and harp and Blue Insomniac Nights for flute, bassoon, and guitar, both newly commissioned to respond to specific poems of Vermont Poet Laureate Sydney Lea. Moon Lilies was a feature of The Women Composers Festival of Hartford as well as the Frost Cycle for soprano, horn and piano and Lanterns for flute, horn, and piano at the 2012 Women's Work series in New York City and the International Horn Symposium in Texas. The horn duo Mysterium was also featured at the 2012 Northeast Horn Workshop.
Lydia belongs to ACME, to the Los Angeles Chapter of the international professional music fraternity Mu Phi Epsilon, and is a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. Her works are published by Cimarron and by the Westleaf Edition and you can view or download Lydia's catalogue here.
“Busler is an amazing horn player. It is impossible to see any spot where the sound was coming from – it seemed to rise out of the upper jaw and the cheekbones. Her embouchure is unique in my experience, and it enables her to play anything without a slip – the French Horn is notoriously hard to control, but not for her.”
Dan Wolfe of the Shelburne News
“Lovely tone...a fine horn player and moreover a gifted musician.”
Lowell Greer, international horn soloist and recording artist and winner of seven International Horn Competitions
“Excellent phrasing and musicianship.”
Jim Decker, the film industry’s most recorded studio horn player, and former Associate Principal of the National Symphony Orchestra
“Lydia is an appropriate, tasteful and mature musician with professional and confident stage presence. Fine and mature Mozart.” David Thompson, Solo Horn of the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra
“I enjoy Lydia’s forward style of playing and nice warm tone; she gives Mozart a very nice shape to the phrases.” William Capps, former Principal horn, Spoleto (Italia) Festival
THE HORN CALL Journal of the International Horn Society, February 2010
"I finally met Lydia at the 41st International Horn Symposium last summer after hearing about her work as an improviser, performer, and composer for some time. Moon Lilies is a beautiful, flowing piece that began its life as a solo improvisation. Rubato is encouraged, and the harmony vacillates between several different modes, so even though the piece is quite tonal, there is an elusive quality to it that is both genuine and appealing. The music has an engaging New Age element. Moon Lilies would be a great contrast to heavy recital pieces, and is musically substantial enough to be programmed next to "warhorses". -Jeffrey Snedeker
“Sunday afternoon's performance at the Unitarian Church by Arioso made coming in from the gorgeous day outdoors well worth it. Arioso, a piano quartet and two female singers introduced a substantial new work by Montpelier composer Lydia Busler. Busler, best-known as a professional French horn player and teacher, was represented by the premiere of her work, "Of Longing in Amethyst Hills," a 20-minute piece scored for the entire Arioso ensemble. Concerning a couple during the Irish uprising after World War I, the four-part piece, despite its easy accessibility, felt fresh. This new effort proved entertaining and often compelling. The craftsmanship in the writing, skillfully weaving in Irish fiddle themes, was quite effective. And, despite a few rough passages in this difficult score, the performance was effective and convincing.
JIM LOWE Barre-Montpelier Times Argus, April 27, 2010
Soloist, lyric improvisationalist, clinician: "Rewiring Your Brain for Joy on Stage!", and composer (ASCAP), Lydia's compositions are performed by artists around the world. In honor of the 2011 Year of the Vermont Composer, Lydia was awarded by the Consortium of Vermont Composers for the war-time opera One Way In, written with the late playwright Lars Nielsen, and by the International Horn Society Meir Rimon Commissioning Fund for Lanterns, commissioned for and performed across the continent by the ZINKALI trio. In the same year, Lydia's vocal/instrumental folk work Thirteen Feathers and Thirteen Stones was performed at the Vermont Statehouse for the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers and Journale was composed for and premiered by flutist Aleksandr Haskin with pianist Mary Au at the Nixon Library in Los Angeles.
Highlighting notable performances, hornist Howard Wall just released a new recording of Appalachia on his album called Horn Monologues on Affetto/Naxos. A new recording called Music for Women with violinist Elmira Darvarova and hornist Howard Wall will be released in May 2020 on Affetto/Naxos. Appalachia is being recreated by young female powerhouses Mary Beth Orr and Sam Gowen on stage and in video. Tina Barkan at the 92nd St Y in NYC has performed a new work in 2020 called Path and Pinnacle for flute, horn, and piano. Reverence premiered in 2019 and is a work for flute, horn, bass, and piano for Ellie Jenkins at Dalton State University. Metalwerx continues to feature great contemporary music, doing winter 2020 lunchtime performances; Irrational Happiness for the Metalwerx Tuba Quartet first premiered in 2017 and Metalwerx continued with the premiere of Deep in 2019. El Sombrero Atrapado for horn and cello was performed up and down the eastern seaboard by a number of performers in 2015 and 2016. The acapella choir Syrinx premiered Throwing Seeds to the Wind at Saint Pauls Cathedral on Lake Champlain in Burlington, Vermont and continued to bring it to venues throughout 2015. Violist Elizabeth Reid and pianist Alison Cerutti commissioned, premiered, recorded, and performed on WGDR The Scree Dragon throughout 2014. In April 2013, the Vermont Contemporary Music Ensemble premiered The Meadow is Gone for flute, clarinet, bassoon, triangle, guitar, cello, and harp and Blue Insomniac Nights for flute, bassoon, and guitar, both newly commissioned to respond to specific poems of Vermont Poet Laureate Sydney Lea. Moon Lilies was a feature of The Women Composers Festival of Hartford as well as the Frost Cycle for soprano, horn and piano and Lanterns for flute, horn, and piano at the 2012 Women's Work series in New York City and the International Horn Symposium in Texas. The horn duo Mysterium was also featured at the 2012 Northeast Horn Workshop.
Lydia belongs to ACME, to the Los Angeles Chapter of the international professional music fraternity Mu Phi Epsilon, and is a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. Her works are published by Cimarron and by the Westleaf Edition and you can view or download Lydia's catalogue here.
“Busler is an amazing horn player. It is impossible to see any spot where the sound was coming from – it seemed to rise out of the upper jaw and the cheekbones. Her embouchure is unique in my experience, and it enables her to play anything without a slip – the French Horn is notoriously hard to control, but not for her.”
Dan Wolfe of the Shelburne News
“Lovely tone...a fine horn player and moreover a gifted musician.”
Lowell Greer, international horn soloist and recording artist and winner of seven International Horn Competitions
“Excellent phrasing and musicianship.”
Jim Decker, the film industry’s most recorded studio horn player, and former Associate Principal of the National Symphony Orchestra
“Lydia is an appropriate, tasteful and mature musician with professional and confident stage presence. Fine and mature Mozart.” David Thompson, Solo Horn of the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra
“I enjoy Lydia’s forward style of playing and nice warm tone; she gives Mozart a very nice shape to the phrases.” William Capps, former Principal horn, Spoleto (Italia) Festival
THE HORN CALL Journal of the International Horn Society, February 2010
"I finally met Lydia at the 41st International Horn Symposium last summer after hearing about her work as an improviser, performer, and composer for some time. Moon Lilies is a beautiful, flowing piece that began its life as a solo improvisation. Rubato is encouraged, and the harmony vacillates between several different modes, so even though the piece is quite tonal, there is an elusive quality to it that is both genuine and appealing. The music has an engaging New Age element. Moon Lilies would be a great contrast to heavy recital pieces, and is musically substantial enough to be programmed next to "warhorses". -Jeffrey Snedeker
“Sunday afternoon's performance at the Unitarian Church by Arioso made coming in from the gorgeous day outdoors well worth it. Arioso, a piano quartet and two female singers introduced a substantial new work by Montpelier composer Lydia Busler. Busler, best-known as a professional French horn player and teacher, was represented by the premiere of her work, "Of Longing in Amethyst Hills," a 20-minute piece scored for the entire Arioso ensemble. Concerning a couple during the Irish uprising after World War I, the four-part piece, despite its easy accessibility, felt fresh. This new effort proved entertaining and often compelling. The craftsmanship in the writing, skillfully weaving in Irish fiddle themes, was quite effective. And, despite a few rough passages in this difficult score, the performance was effective and convincing.
JIM LOWE Barre-Montpelier Times Argus, April 27, 2010
Lydia and friend Dave Amram hang after hours at the International Horn Symposium in Macomb
The Heritage Brass relaxing between rehearsals at Christ Church at Dartmouth
Lydia with members of the Zinkali Trio after the premiere of Lanterns, funded by the International Horn Society Meir Rimon Fund
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Lydia waits for the signal that it's time to play the next piece of new music, fresh off the press, for a live radio production of Komposer Kombat on Kalvos and Damien's New Music Bazaar
Lydia leading a mass choir in morning warm-ups at the International Horn Symposium in Boston
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