Richard Steggall

Biography

Richard Steggall is a freelance horn player, teacher and writer. He studied at the Royal College of Music with Julian Baker and Pip Eastop, during which time he started working with many of London’s top orchestras. He has played guest principal horn with the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, the Philharmonia, BBC Concert Orchestra, Royal Ballet Sinfonia, Britten Sinfonia and English National Ballet, as well as further afield with orchestras including RTE National Symphony Orchestra, Dublin. Richard is currently Principal Horn of the National Symphony Orchestra, UK with whom he is recording the complete Beethoven symphony cycle in 2024.

Since leaving college, Richard has always had regular work in the West End, holding positions in the orchestras of Into the Woods (Donmar), Kiss Me Kate (Victoria Palace), Scrooge (Palladium), Whistle Down the Wind (Palace),The Producers (Theatre Royal, Drury Lane), Phantom of the Opera (Her Majesty’s) and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cinderella (Gillian Lynne). As a soloist, Richard has developed horn and piano recitals for children; he has given two recitals in the Elgar Room at the Royal Albert Hall and is a guest artist for Bach to Baby. He sometimes performs for grown-ups as well, highlights include performing Mozart’s Horn Concerto No. 4 with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.

Richard is a teacher at Bromley Youth Music Trust where he has helped to develop the very successful Band on the Run scheme, which has started the brass playing journey for hundreds of young state school pupils. He has also conceived the Horns on the Run scheme, which involves children learning the French horn from scratch in large and small groups. He is a guest lecturer for the Royal Academy of Music’s LRAM teaching diploma and hosts the annual Bromley Horn Day which is attended by over 50 horn players from across South-East England.

In 2023, Richard released his debut book Don’t Fear the Horn: A comprehensive guide to the French horn for all brass players, which was a finalist in the Music & Drama Education Awards 2024, and is currently being released as a YouTube video series. He is the editor of the British Horn Society’s magazine, The Horn Player, and contributes to other publications, including writing teaching resources for Music Teacher magazine.

Although he is proud of all these achievements, his most memorable moment was opening “Live8” with Paul McCartney and U2 playing “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” dressed as John Lennon!