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Richard Mackey in Conversation with John Perkel

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Join us for a conversation on the diverse career of musician Richard Mackey.

Born in Philadelphia,  Mackey contracted polio at the age of 8, which limited the use of his right hand. He began his musical training at the age of eleven with trumpet and switched to the horn two years later. A Tanglewood Music Center alumnus from 1949-1952, he attended the New England Conservatory of Music, where he studied with former BSO principal hornist, William Valkenier and solfège with Gaston Dufresne, also a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Mr. Mackey was also greatly influenced by the BSO principal trumpeter, Roger Voisin. During his multifaceted career, he has been a member of several major orchestras, playing all four horn positions at varying times. He has been a member of the Kansas City Symphony, the San Antonio Symphony, the Detroit Symphony, the New Orleans Philharmonic,  the Cleveland Orchestra, and the Japan Philharmonic.   He became active as a Los Angeles Studio musician in the late 60s.   Mr. Mackey was a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1973-2005. During the course of approximately a decade, Richard Mackey also participated in the prestigious Marlboro Music Festival.

Richard Mackey is one of a very few living musicians who has played under longtime Boston Symphony Music Director, Serge Koussevitzky.
In addition to his amazing and long career, Richard Mackey has been an avid collector of first edition scores of many of Mozart’s compositions. Other outside interests include travel, wine, reading, and the Boston Red Sox.

He will be in conversation with John Perkel.  Perkel was a librarian for various orchestras, most recently for the Boston Symphony and Tanglewood Music Center. In 2016, he retired and initiated the Berkshire Chamber Players series at the Stockbridge Library, Museum & Archives. Before serving as an orchestra librarian, John was a music teacher at the Berkshire Hills Regional School District and was a psychiatric worker at the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge.