Stephanie Fritz

A native of Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, Stephanie Ferguson (maiden name Fritz) fell in love with the robust and diverse musical life at an early age and has pursued orchestral horn, collaborative piano, choral singing, organ, and jazz trumpet throughout her education.

Stephanie was the horn chairholder in Broadway's How To Dance In Ohio. She has also performed with Broadway's Moulin Rouge!, the Great Gatsby, and Back to the Future, as well as the Princeton, Albany, Harrisburg, Waterbury, Allentown, New Haven Symphony Orchestras, Symphony in C, the Rhode Island Philharmonic, and Orchestra New England. She has shared the stage in orchestras supporting artists such as Billy Ray Cyrus, Jeremy Jordan, Roger Bart, Eric Anderson, Aaron Tveit, Judy Collins, Madeleine Peyroux, Ashley Loren, and JoJo Levesque.

Stephanie completed her undergraduate studies at Rutgers University with Richard Deane and Jerry Peel and her graduate studies at Yale School of Music with William Purvis. She has spent summers at the Norfolk, Aspen, Colorado College, and Marrowstone Music Festivals. In addition to playing the horn, Stephanie has worked as an ensemble librarian, interview transcriber, and arts administrator, working with organizations such as the New York Philharmonic, Oral History of American Music, Yale Philharmonia, and Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

Never content with doing just one thing, Stephanie enjoys reading, playing Nintendo games, and hiking when she isn't playing horn. She has also recently began endeavors into speed jigsaw puzzling and stenography.

Assignments are based on the students playing aspirations and goals (ie. state band audition, musical/pit orchestra audition, college audition, recital, for fun). Repertoire will be supplemented with listening, etudes/studies, fundamental exercises, and music theory homework. The amount of work given depends on the students' and parents' goals for lessons. For example, a student wishing to audition for a music conservatory will have a different custom workload than a student playing with their school's orchestra for the first time.

I heavily use the Socratic method while teaching. I ask my students questions and help them come to the answer on their own while providing direction and guidance towards that answer. I will sometimes play a passage several different ways and ask my student to describe how each repetition is different from another. We spend time listening to professional recordings to constantly have a reminder in our ear of ultimate inspiration and actual music aside from the techniques we might be focusing on in that lesson. I also believe that a student is more than just somebody learning the french horn; they are also a person - often a child - that is going through life outside the lessons and is dealing with a lot. If we need to talk about what's on their mind other than music, we will. Afterwards, I'll turn our time back to the horn and help the student use the french horn as a tool to help channel their emotions. I also believe in practicing confidence and forward thinking. We never say "I can't" in my lessons, it is always "I can't YET" because I truly believe every student is capable of achieving anything they put their mind to, so long as we work together to find the best approach for them to reach it.