Steven Gross

Steven Gross is a longtime orchestral hornist who is also a noted educator in demand around the world for master classes. Gross is a professor of French horn at the University of California Santa Barbara. Gross was born on October 19, 1954. In 1976, he won the inaugural International Heldenleben Horn Competition (now the International Horn Competition of America), held at Cleveland State University in Ohio. Gross remained involved with that event and now serves as its executive director. He spent much of his career as an orchestral hornist, beginning with a stint from 1978 to 1980 as assistant principal horn of the National Symphony in Washington. He moved on to a similar position with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra from 1980 to 1988, and then to Cincinnati, where he served as principal horn of the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra for almost 24 years, from 1987 to 2011. During this period, Gross began teaching in the southwestern Ohio area at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and Miami University, where he served as visiting artist. He appeared as a soloist with orchestras in various countries, among them China, Kenya, and the Czech Republic, where he was given the Stich-Punto Commemorative Plaque from the Czech Horn Society for outstanding devotion to Czech horn music. He was only the second American to receive the award. In 1995, Gross was invited for an interview at the University of California Santa Barbara. He had to look up Santa Barbara on a map, but once he arrived, he was attracted by the university and by the natural beauty of the oceanside campus. Gross took the job and has been a member of the UCSB faculty ever since, rising to the rank of professor and head of the university's woodwind, brass, and percussion programs. He is in demand for master classes and festival residencies in many countries, including at the Moscow Conservatory, twice at the Beijing Central Conservatory, and the Stellenbosch Conservatory and the University of Cape Town in South Africa. In China, he served as guest principal horn with the Hunan Symphony. Gross has made five albums for the Summit label, beginning with Strauss (2006, featuring not only music by Richard Strauss but also by his father, Franz, with the Philharmonia Orchestra of Bratislava). In 2021, Gross joined violinist Philip Ficsor and pianist Constantine Finehouse on the Naxos label for the premiere recording of William Bolcom's Trio for horn, violin, and piano.
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