Sarah Willis: My horn is my best friend but also sometimes my worst enemy

Sarah Willis is a marvelous paragon of talent and energy. Born in the United States to a British mother and Australian father, she became in 2001 the first woman hornist of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle. Trained in London and Berlin after the fall of the Wall in 1989, she was two years later the first professional musician in the West to join the Staatskapelle, the orchestra of the Deutsche Staatsoper Unter den Linden under Daniel Barenboim.

A member of the Order of the British Empire since 2021 for his services to charitable activities and for the promotion of classical music, Willis is also a major presence on television and in digital media.