Anna Drysdale

With a career that spans classical, jazz and commercial music with ensembles like the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, London Contemporary Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Anna is a versatile London-based horn player.

Equally comfortable as a soloist or part of a section, she has been invited to play guest principal with Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Southern Pro Musica and the Academy of Ancient Music. She has performed a complete Mozart Horn Concertos cycle with the Amadè Players, as well as a solo appearance at the British Horn Society and performing Ethel Smyth’s “Concerto for Horn, Violin and Orchestra” in 2018 to mark 100 years of votes for women in the United Kingdom.

She also freelances with other orchestras in the UK and abroad, including Birmingham Royal Ballet, London Mozart Players, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Dunedin Consort and Kymi Sinfonietta, Finland, as well as performing Brandenburg 1 several times with leading British baroque ensemble Florilegium. She has been on trial for jobs with Royal Northern Sinfonia and BBC Philharmonic.

Anna appears frequently on the jazz and commercial scenes as well, having held the horn chair for several years with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra in her youth and playing with them in settings such as the BBC Proms. She has played for Mark Lockheart’s “Days on Earth” project and for bebop projects with Allison Neale; she has additionally headlined at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club with the Richard Shepherd Nonet, playing music from Miles Davis’s Birth of the Cool. She appears on saxophone player Tom Ridout’s album No Excuses and has played several times at the EFG London Jazz Festival. Recent pop gigs include the music of Snoop Dogg at London’s Jazz Café with American saxophonist Sly5thAve, a sold-out Barbican date performing with the London Electronic Orchestra and Kate Simko and playing for Questlove’s Prince tribute, 4U, at the Royal Albert Hall.

Anna completed her bachelors at the Royal College of Music in 2014 with first class honours, having won the Richard III Prize and been an RCM Concerto Competition finalist in her final year. She graduated from the Royal Academy of Music in 2016 with an MMus(Distinction), having won the Dennis Brain Horn Prize. While studying, she was a member of prestigious youth orchestras, the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester and the European Union Youth Orchestra, as well as winning a place in the London Symphony Orchestra Brass Academy and being the 2015 recipient of the Paxman Prize.

Anna received generous support throughout her studies from the Royal Academy of Music, Help Musicians UK, the Kathleen Trust, the Yorkshire Ladies’ Council of Education, the Women’s Careers Foundation and the Peter Hinckley Trust. To support her development as a historical horn specialist, after her masters degree the Countess of Munster Trust and Help Musicians UK continued to support her in travelling to Amsterdam to study with Teunis van der Zwart. Her Jungwirth Lausmann natural horn was purchased with the help of the Wolfson Foundation, the Macfarlane Walker Trust and the EMI Music Sound Foundation – support for which she is hugely grateful.