The cornetto is a hybrid of brass and woodwind instruments. Unfortunately its type died out completely — there is no modern instrument. My instrument is made of boxwood, wrapped in leather and has a very small, detachable, cup-shaped mouthpiece made of animal horn. The cornetti functioned as the top voices of the professional brass ensemble of the Renaissance and early Baroque. Its heyday was probably in the early 17th century, when it was featured by composers such as Schütz, Scheidt, Gabrieli, Monteverdi, Rigatti, Cavalli, Biber, and Rosenmüller. Even Bach wrote for cornetto, although sparingly; a good example is aria "Sei getreu" from cantata 12.

The cornetto is really a perfect instrument for me. It combines my abilities as a brass and a woodwind player with the music that I think is the most interesting and beautiful. A match made in heaven. I began as a modern cornet player in Mason City, Iowa (River City in the musical "The Music Man") and also played recorders and other Renaissance woodwinds in college. I started playing cornetto in college (in Iowa), and somehow it made sense to me. It seemed like a challenging instrument, and luckily I never heard about the thousands of people who heard about its historical significance and started playing, only to quit immediately when they found out how hard it was. I guess I got a good sound on it very quickly, which was advantageous. The ensemble of cornetti and trombones (or sackbuts) attracted me immediately, and when I first heard a recording of the Monteverdi 1610 Vespers I was hooked.

I'm doing 35 performances this year. I just finished two in Honolulu with The Whole Noyse, and we have three still to go. We have played the Vespers this year in Austin, Pittsburgh, Honolulu, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Carmel, Davis, Palo Alto, Vancouver, Oakland, Calgary, San Antonio and Louisville so far.

It's a group I helped to start in 1985, based in the Palo Alto area. The group's name is derived from an English town band called the Norwich Waits, who in 1584 described a set of five instruments as "beeying a Whoall noyse." We made a CD called "Lo Splendore d'Italia" in 1996 and have played in concerts all over the US, Canada and in Europe. In 1999 we toured in Northern Italy playing concerts in medieval castles.

Bowman is a private K-8 Montessori school in Palo Alto. I teach music to all 215 students. I am responsible for five excellent bands at Bowman including concert bands, a jazz band, and the marching band which has marched in the Palo Alto May Fete Parade for the last two years. Very good musicians at Bowman, but no cornetto players yet! In addition to my full-time job at Bowman, I also taught at the Amherst early music workshop on the east coast for a week this summer. I have been involved in several other concerts this year besides the Monteverdi Vespers, including Italian, German, English, French and Spanish music of the period.

It has been very challenging to fit in so many performances this year. The head of school, Mary Beth Ricks, has been very very flexible and positive about my performing, and I had warned her a couple years ago that 2010 was going to come. I’ve had a lot of encouragement from the Bowman children and parents too.

Bruce Dickey is certainly the best. And he is responsible not only for influencing hundreds of good players, but really for bringing cornetto back to a place of importance in the modern world where audiences wish to appreciate the glorious sounds of these 16th and 17th century instruments. I spent a good deal of time with Bruce and his wife Candace Smith in the 1980s in Bologna. We spent much more time cooking together and learning about Italian wines and food than we did in lessons. One of the greatest gifts he gave me was an introduction to the Civico Museo Bibliografico-Musicale in Bologna, where I was able to study many of the first printings of major musical works by important composers of the period. I was able to handle and study the original part books for the Monteverdi 1610 Vespers there.

Yes, the instrument I play is a copy of various Venetian originals from the early 17th century made in 1992 by John McCann, a Palo Alto native, now living in Utah. There are many original instruments still in museums in Verona, Paris, Brussels, Vienna and others. By far, the best originals I have played are a famous pair of instruments called the "Christ Church cornetts." These instruments were perhaps built by a member of a famous Italian cornett building family, the Bassanos, and bought in 1605 in preparation for a visit by the newly crowned King James I of England. They are housed at the Christ Church Library in Oxford, and I had the opportunity to play them for several wonderful hours.

I really enjoy ensemble music for cornetti and sackbuts, and some of the best is by Bruce Dickey's group Concerto Palatino. Their first CD, entitled "North Italian Music for Cornetts and Trombones," is fantastic. I also played on two fine recordings made in 1991 with Andrew Parrott and the Taverner Consort in London: "Venetian Church Music" and "Giovanni Gabrieli: Canzonas, Sonatas, Motets."