Barry Tuckwell Biography, Age, Height, Wife, Net Worth and Family

Tuckwell died in Melbourne, aged 88, on 16 January 2020 of complications from heart disease.

Tuckwell related an anecdote regarding his choice of instrument: sitting in a cafe one day with his sister Patricia, Charles Mackerras and a horn player from the local symphony, Patricia speculated on what Tuckwell’s future in music might be. The horn player suggested, “Why not try the horn?” Tuckwell did so and within two years was playing in the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. With characteristic humour, when recounting this at the British Horn Society’s festival in 2005, he turned to the audience and said, “One note at a time, piece of cake!” The horn is often considered to be one of the most difficult orchestral instruments to master.

The Helpmann Awards is an awards show, celebrating live entertainment and performing arts in Australia, presented by industry group Live Performance Australia (LPA) since 2001. In 2007, Tuckwell received the JC Williamson Award, the LPA’s highest honour, for their life’s work in live performance.

Tuckwell was also well known as a conductor, appearing with leading orchestras in Europe and the United States. For four seasons he was Chief Conductor of the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and in 1982 founded the Maryland Symphony Orchestra. He enjoyed a long association with the Northern Sinfonia and was appointed their Guest Conductor following an acclaimed fourteen-concert tour of North America.

He resigned from the orchestra in 1968 to pursue a career as a soloist and conductor. For the next thirty years, he carved out a career exclusively as soloist – one of the few horn virtuosos to have done so, rather than combining occasional concert performances with an orchestral position or a teaching post. At the age of 65, he decided to retire. His last concert was with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in 1997, at the age of 65.

He formed a wind quintet in 1968, which also toured internationally.

Tuckwell was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1965 and a Companion of the Order of Australia in 1992.

Tuckwell was known for his master classes. He was Artist-in-Residence at Dartmouth College and Pomona College in the United States, and was Professor of Horn at the Royal Academy of Music in London from 1963 until 1974. He served as Distinguished Visiting Faculty at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore in the 1980s and 1990s. He held the position of Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne and for several years hosted the annual Barry Tuckwell Institute at Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction, Colorado.

In 1962 he formed a trio with Brenton Langbein (violin) and Maureen Jones (piano) for a performance of the Horn Trio by Don Banks, which was commissioned by the Edinburgh Festival. The trio played together for many years, touring in Europe, Asia and Australia until the death of Brenton Langbein. They recorded the Banks Trio, the Brahms Trio, and Quatre Petites Pièces by Charles Koechlin for Tudor records.

At 15, Tuckwell was appointed by Joseph Post as third horn with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. A year later, he joined the Sydney Symphony Orchestra under Eugene Goossens, where he remained for three and a half years before leaving for England. His first appointment in 1951 was with the Hallé Orchestra under Sir John Barbirolli. After two years, he went to the Scottish National Orchestra under Karl Rankl and a year later to the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra under Charles Groves. In 1955, he was appointed first horn with the London Symphony Orchestra.

Barry Emmanuel Tuckwell, OBE, AC (5 March 1931 – 16 January 2020) was an Australian French horn player who spent most of his professional life in the UK and the United States. He is generally considered to have been one of the world’s leading horn players.

Barry Tuckwell was born on 5 March 1931 in Melbourne, son of Charles Tuckwell, an organist, and his wife Elizabeth. 5 March is known by many as the Horn Duumvirate Date, as it was the birth date of both Tuckwell and Philip Farkas, both highly regarded horn players. He had an older sister, Patricia, a violinist and fashion model widely known as Bambi. She married the photographer Athol Shmith and later George Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood, a first cousin of Queen Elizabeth II.