The Four Hornsmen of the Apocalypse was formed as a student group at the University of Southern Mississippi in the spring of 1998. The original members were Stuart De Haro (that's right THE Stuart De Haro of De Haro Horns), Molly Galloway (Molly Wood after Gerry got a hold of her), Tony Licata, and Gerry Wood. After spending a short time goofing off together (which is still one of their core values), learning some repertoire, and preparing for some competitions, someone came up with the bright idea of touring and performing for various high schools and junior highs throughout Louisiana and Texas to prepare for said competitions. The idea was that if they could get comfortable performing in front of a crowd, then the competitions would be a piece of cake (of course, they didn’t take into account that they would be competing against saxophone quartets….don’t even get us started on that one!).
Eventually, in the fall of 2000, the Woods (Gerry and Molly) graduated and moved to Champaign-Urbana, Illinois where Gerry began working on his Doctorate of Musical Arts at the University of Illinois. It was at this point that the group met their greatest influence and mentor, Dr. Kazimierz Machala. It wasn’t long before Tony and Stuart followed Gerry and Molly up to Illinois and the group began to really thrive. A series of events even led to them all living in the same house for a while, but it is probably best if we leave those stories to a bar somewhere after their next performance.
In the fall of 2003, Gerry and Molly moved off again. Gerry went to study with David Johnson (of the American Horn Quartet) and Molly to teach in the Dallas-Fort Worth area while he made preparations for the family to join him in Switzerland – Tony and Stu stayed in Champaign. While in Switzerland, David Johnson asked the quartet to perform at a workshop he was holding sometime during the next year. To prepare, Gerry and Molly hatched a plan that the quartet would all meet in Texas during the winter break and play for some of her students……the little thing turned big when Ethel Merker joined them and over 100 kids attended the first Bluebonnet Hornfest in January of 2004.
In the fall of 2004, Gerry and Molly returned to Illinois to rejoin Stu and Tony and for another try at the DMA. About this time, Gerry and Molly were pregnant with their second child and Molly was thinking about quitting the group to spend more time with their kids. Enter, the freak, Audrey Good. She fit in the group like a glove and they thought they were set. Meanwhile, Stu’s business was beginning to take off and he decided that he would rather make horns (and pay his bills) than goof off with the Hornsmen, so he left the group and Molly stayed.
The group stayed this way for another year, until things got too crazy in the Wood household and Molly decided to resign. Enter Paul Blackstone, the new graduate student in the studio at the University of Illinois. Side Note: Paul went to the same high school as Gerry; LD Bell High School in Hurst, TX, and actually to a lesson from Gerry during one of the early quartet tours…..weird, huh?
The group has been this way ever since. They have performed throughout the country at regional workshops, festivals, Colleges, Universities, and the International Horn Workshop in Macomb, IL in 2009.
