Kerry Turner (*1960)

Biography

Kerry Drew Turner, born 1960 in Texas, began composing at the age of 10. Having passed the highest level music theory examination given by the American Piano Teacher’s Guild, he submitted a wind quintet at the age of 12, which won First Prize. By graduation from High School, he had composed two symphonies, a mass, seven orchestral tone poems, and a small string quartet. He entered Baylor University on a scholarship for horn, and was also awarded First Prize and scholarship of the Baylor University Composition Competition. Two years later Kerry Turner transferred to the Manhattan School of Music, where he continued his studies in horn. In 1982 he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study horn at the Stuttgart Academy of Music with the great horn soloist Hermann Baumann. During these later years of horn study, Kerry Turner’s compositional interests took a back seat. He did however compose several chamber works for various combinations of wind instruments.

In 1984 he became the solo hornist of the Gürzenich Orchestra of Cologne. One year later he assumed the position of associate principal horn of the Symphony Orchestra of Radio-Télé-Luxembourg, where he remains to the present. He has been very active as a composer in the past five years. He has written three brass quintets, three horn quartets, several pieces for High School orchestra, as well as numerous works for horn and piano, horn and violin, and unaccompanied horn.

Kerry Turner joined the Award-Winning American Horn Quartet in 1985, and it was through this ensemble that his works received world-wide exposure. The AHQ has performed at least one of his virtuose pieces on every concert and international competition, from Vancouver to Prague to Tokyo. Kerry Turner was awared First Prize of the International Horn Society Composition Contest for his Horn Quartet No. 1, and won the Third Prize at the 39th Prague Spring Festival International Music Competition on horn. His works have received much acclaim wherever they have been performed, all over the world.