Derek Hayes was born in Leeds and has lived in the Hitchin area since 1978. He is a Nurse Tutor at the Lister and Queen Elizaheth II Hospitals, specialising in medical nursing. His interest in horn playing stems from a musical family, though it is only recently he has returned to it following his own family commitments. He studied with Christopher Tilbury until obtaining the ARCM in 1989. He is at present studying horn playing in England during the nineteenth century. He has performed the first horn parts in the Haydn Concerto for Two Horns and the Brandenburg Concerto No.1 by Bach, as well as the solo horn parts in the Mozart Horn Concerto No.2 and the Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings by Benjamin Britten. He has also taken part in several recitals on various themes. For this performance he used the Paxman Double Horn in B Flat and F. (November 1991)