Steven Becknell has been principal horn with LA Opera for over 25 years.
To date, he has played over 1,500 performances with LA Opera. Notably, in 2010, he performed all the offstage and pit solos of Wagner’s complete Ring cycle.
Author of the groundbreaking book for horn, Etudes from the Repertoire, he has had an extremely varied and unique career in Southern California. At age 22, he moved to Los Angeles to study with Hollywood studio legend Vince DeRosa at USC and began working professionally while still in school. He has played in orchestras throughout Southern California including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the San Diego Symphony, the Pacific Symphony, and was a member of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra for eight years. But the majority of his time has been spent recording in the Hollywood studios.
He has played on well over 1,000 motion pictures, many television series, video games, and even the recorded music for theme parks such as Disneyland. He has played live for the Academy Awards and has had the honor of recording with such legendary artists as Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Rosemary Clooney and Barry Manilow.
He has performed chamber music extensively in the Los Angeles area, was a longtime member of West Coast-based Camerata Pacifica, and has performed at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival and Mostly Mozart Festival. A veteran of numerous Broadway show productions in Los Angeles, he is eager to impart all of this broad-based experience with students at USC, where he has been on the faculty since 2012.
