"MediusTerra represents our intense passion for life: the horn, music and our strong connection to the land

and people of the Mediterranean." - Janis Lieberman and Heidi Trefethen

Heidi Trefethen

With a multifaceted career as a classical and jazz French Hornist, guitarist, and sought-after sound engineer, Heidi Trefethen shuttles back and forth across continents frequently, in roles both onstage and off. As a hornist, she has performed in numerous ensembles and venues in Italy, the UK, and the US, including the LA Philharmonic, the JazzUp Festival in Italy, and the Community Women’s Orchestra in the San Francisco Bay Area. Heidi has repeatedly been awarded the first position for Horn with the annual Rome Festival Orchestra, and on special invitation, played with Giasscritto and Ottomania, two jazz ensembles of Rome’s Teatro dell’Opera, under Claudio Cimpanelli’s direction. As a live sound engineer, she has worked with the likes of Odetta, Ellis Paul, Joan Baez, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Holly Near, John Stewart of the Kingston Trio, Dar Williams, Al Stewart, Jane Siberry and Lucy Kaplansky, often at the legendary Freight and Salvage in Berkeley, CA.

A self-taught pianist at age two, Heidi took up the French horn and as a middle school student, began playing with the Seattle Youth Symphony. Following a move to Southern California, she was awarded a full scholarship to the Idyllwild Arts Academy. She then continued her studies of horn performance and pedagogy at Brigham Young University, where she won principal positions in the university’s elite chamber orchestra, as well as its philharmonic orchestra and chamber groups, led by conductor and former Vienna Philharmonic principal violist Clyn Barrus. As a sound engineer, she studied at the California Recording Institute’s intensive sound engineering program. An internship at the historic Coast Recorders and a job at Rocket Lab mastering house had her working side-by-side with technical heavyweights John Cuniberti, Dan Alexander and Michael Romanowski. Heidi’s engineering credits include producer Bryan Bell's "Nestler & Hawtin," Tammy Hall’s 2013 release “Blue Soul,” Jessica Jones and Mark Taylor’s “Live at the Freight” 2011, and Lucy Kaplansky’s "Kaplansky Sings Kaplanksy," 2000.

Heidi successfully auditioned for the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the Berklee College of Music. While in Boston preparing to start at Berklee, she studied with the principal hornist of the Boston Philharmonic. Fate then stepped in and Heidi’s trip to Italy to play in the Rome Festival turned into a three-year stay. She returned Stateside fluent in Italian and connected to an international community of musical peers. Heidi also led the SF-based four-piece folk-pop band, Whoa Nellie, as songwriter, guitarist and backing vocalist. They performed for several years throughout the Bay Area and released a self-titled EP. In 1999, Heidi also composed an album of contemporary folk songs, which she recorded with Amy Reber, Whoa Nellie’s lead vocalist.

Heidi began playing trombone in 2011 and plays in an 11-piece R&B/soul cover band, the Grove Valve Ensemble, winners of the 2012 FORTUNE Battle of the Corporate Bands at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in October 2012. Her recent engagements include membership as the French Hornist in the SFJAZZ Center Monday Night band, recording sessions at Skywalker Sound for the Marin Youth Symphony, and freelancing in the Bay Area for the Santa Rosa Symphony, Symphony Napa Valley, Adam Theis' Jazz Mafia and Realistic Orchestra, among other Bay Area ensembles. She can be seen in various performances with Tammy Hall and Denise Perrier and finishing their recording, Dialogue. She has recently finished recording members of Santana for Bryan Bell’s (Herbie Hancock’s first engineer) recently released recording , "Nestler & Hawtin," for which she has earned credits as a member of the production team and Second Engineer.