Abby Black, our new Principal French Horn by Neil Kimel When did you start playing the horn and where did you study?        I began playing the horn in fourth grade. My school didn’t offer horn as an option, so my parents bought me the cheapest single horn on eBay and told me I had to stick with it until at least eighth grade.      Throughout high school, I played extensively for Jon Boen (retired Lyric Opera principal horn), who was an incredible influence on me. His kindnes

By Melissa Trier Kirk and Eleanor Bartsch 1995 was a great year for music of all kinds in Chicago. If you played in the Lyric Opera Orchestra, you were performing Wagner’s Ring Cycle (the first in Lyric’s history) under the baton of Maestro Zubin Mehta. You might also have been recording a song for another significant musical cycle: the sprawling, three-disk alternative rock opus, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, by the Smashing Pumpkins.    Chicago in the 1990s was

An Interview with John Mangum by A View From The Pit staff VP: We wanted to start with your “origin” story. Was there a particular event, performance, experience, or person that made you want to work in the arts? JM: When I was nine, we moved to a new town, There was a kid my age across the street, and my mother pushed me out the door and said, "Go over there and make a friend."It turned out his mom was a piano teacher. He did not become a friend, but I went home and told my

by Neil Kimel At the end of the 2024-2025 season, Jon Boen will retire from the Lyric Opera Orchestra after 46 years as principal horn. Jon studied at Northern Illinois University under Bill Klingelhoffer who was a previous principal horn at Lyric. Bill invited Jon to the pit for the first time to assist him on Die Meistersinger with Ferdinand Leitner conducting. Quite the baptism of fire to opera! Jon played one season as 3rd horn at Lyric under another principal horn Gail