Last night I was wandering the lobby during the first half of the concert, looking to pick up a program. An usher asked me what instrument I played, and I said, “Oboe and English horn, although tonight it’s just English horn.” She responded with, “Oh I LOVE French horn!”

Yeah, We get that a lot. I didn’t correct her. Not my job.

In looking at the program notes I see the writer of those refers to my instrument as cor anglais. (The “melancholy cor anglais”, in fact.) I wonder if he’s from the UK, or if he just prefers cor anglais. For the record, my parts do say “English horn” on them, but you can call it whatever you like. As long as you’re nice about it, that is. And never never never say, “It’s neither English nor a horn.” We are quite bored by that. 🙂