John Burton
Hornist John Burton has been an active chamber and orchestral player in the San Francisco Bay Area for nearly fifty years. Before attending Stanford University, he studied with George Cable and Wendell Hoss in San Diego. While at Stanford from 1973 to 1978, he was principal horn with the Stanford Symphony and appeared as soloist with the Stanford Chamber Orchestra and participated in the Carmel Bach Festival under maestro Sandor Salgo. In addition to a wide range of chamber music activities since then, John has served as principal horn with the Master Sinfonia Chamber Orchestra since the 1985-86 season. In 1991, he had the great fortune to tour the ex-Soviet Union with the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra, performing in Leningrad, Vilnius, Odessa and Moscow.
He has appeared as soloist with the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra, the Stanford Wind Ensemble, and Master Sinfonia, including performances of horn concerti by Strauss, Mozart, Amram and Telemann, and the Serenade for Horn, Tenor and Strings by Benjamin Britten. In 2011, Pamela Martin and John collaborated on performances of Mozart's Horn Concerto No. 2, K. 417 with Master Sinfonia.
Now recently retired from his professional career as a geotechnical engineer, Mr. Burton was a principal at Rutherford + Chekene Consulting Engineers, where he was responsible for the foundation design of major projects such as the Monterey Bay Aquarium; Doe Library and Hearst Mining Building at UC Berkeley; and Braun Music Center, Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, and the restoration of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hanna House at Stanford. Mr. Burton resides in Sausalito with his wife, Carolyn and their puppy, Teya. When not practicing, he also engages in the somewhat pathological hobby of collecting and restoring vintage sports/racing cars, driving them in rallies and races, and then fixing them again.