The big cheese at the Hamilton Philharmonic

Posted at 5:14 PM on February 13, 2007 by Don Lee

Mozart's friend Joseph Leutgeb may have been history's only horn player to moonlight as a cheesemonger. It seems that practitioners of the French horn are only slightly more likely to try their hand at conducting. Barry Tuckwell did it by founding the Maryland Symphony in 1982. Anyone else?

Besides James Sommerville, that is. Sommerville is principal horn in the Boston Symphony and has just been named music director of the Hamilton (Ontario) Philharmonic. They'll need him in Canada for only nine weeks a year, so he won't be letting go of his horn anytime soon.