HotBrass.info

Sackbut journeys

2008-04-24T13:03:00.003+01:00

I'm pleased to see that top sackbut player Adam Woolf has launched a website. There are lots of bits of information on there about his various playing activities, including Oltremontano, the early music / jazz / gypsy (etc) fusion group, his great chamber group Caecilia Concert and of course, His Majestys Sagbutts and Cornetts.

I've also recently been heavily involved in launching a group based on sackbuts and cornetts called La Spiritata. The music is tremendous, and it's a fantastic experience experimenting with it and presenting it to audiences, many of whom will not have heard much of it before.

Byron Fulcher in Time Out

2008-04-24T11:35:00.002+01:00

Time Out did a quick interview with Byron Fulcher last week.

Our principal trumpeter was once asked what he would be if he wasn’t a musician. He said “a trombonist”.

Trombonist humour

2008-03-19T11:22:00.004Z

F trigger abbreviation Originally used when the first one failed in the middle of a concert and the player was overheard to say "F*!@ing trigger" as he tried to make it work.

More wit to keep you sane during the tacet movements in The Trombonist's Dictionary

Lip massage device

2008-02-16T14:29:00.003Z

I was amazed to see a new product on the market called 'Vibrass'.

According to one site (you can't make this stuff up):
"Electronic Toggle switch"
"The labial zone is massed as a whole and reinforces blood circulation"
"Vibrass allows a regular blood irrigation"

Takes two AA batteries. You at the back, stop sniggering!

You guessed it, the price is £69.

The stolen trombone, the policeman and the tarts

2008-01-28T14:25:00.000Z

Corrupt police in Sweden have been demanding tarts from hapless trombone players, according to The Local.

The hapless musician had initially turned to the police after somebody stole his beloved trombone. Sensing the opportunity for a workplace feast, the policeman said that he could probably speed up the investigation if the trombonist promised to buy a 'smörgåstårta', or savoury tart, if and when the case was solved.

When the sickening deal was struck, of supplying tarts enough for ten hungry police-officers, the police turned the heat up on the criminal and the trombone thief was caught. But the PC got his just desserts, because the tarts were brought into the police station on a day that the officer was off work and he was fined nearly three months wages!

A Developing Neish

2007-12-02T17:42:00.000Z

For the past 18 months, Manchester-based tuba player Les Neish has been writing an occasional blog for brass-forum.co.uk that gives a taster of this energetic young players's mission to promote the tuba. It makes me breathless just reading all the activites he gets up to!

He's just written to tell me he's restarted his blog on his own site and it looks like he'll be writing a bit more frequently and personally.

Tomorrow he's off to Michigan to play with the Brass Band of Battle Creek, so expect photos some photos of that, but in the meantime you can read it so far here.

John Kenny toasts whisky residency

2007-09-18T19:22:00.000+01:00

I'm sure that many Hotbrass readers will be jealous when hearing about John Kenny's new role as "Glenfiddich composer in residence" - is it the dream music job? Last week he was performing at the Malt Barn coffee shop and Whisky bar at the Glenfiddich Distillery, directing the Carnyx Youth Brass Ensemble, before leading them in concerts in Germany.

And the week before he was playing in Glasgow for the Last Night of the Proms - a real tribute to this man's many talents. He has a wonderful character and I had an inspiring time chatting with him for an article in the August issue of Brass Herald. He has lots of great stories about projects that stemmed from completely chance meetings with people, such as getting a gig in the Taj Mahal!

Lindberg offer

2007-08-16T13:57:00.000+01:00

Word has just arrived that you can get 30% off BIS CDs at Presto Classical, including all the Christian Lindberg ones! So for about £9 a-piece you can get plenty of great recordings. Check it out here.

Milt Stevens remembered

2007-08-06T23:35:00.000+01:00

The Principal Trombone of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, Milt Stevens, passed away last week aged 64 due to a heart ailment. The Washington Post takes up the story and remembers his contributions to the orchestra, the Washington Brass and his students.

An affair with the trombone

2007-07-28T10:38:00.000+01:00

The Daily Express featured the trombone last week following revelations that not taking up an instrument is one of the nation's most oft-stated regrets.

Apparently a full 16% of men and 11% of women "wished they'd learnt to express themselves through music", but of all the instruments to represent this expression, it is not clear why the Daily Express chose the print a large picture of a trombone.

Or perhaps playing these slide instrument resonates with Freudian imagery of the first on their list of suggested regrets: "Whether it’s having an affair – or not having one"?

Melbourne to host brass stars

2007-07-08T21:28:00.002+01:00

Australia's Melbourne is the proud host of a large brass festival this September with plenty of International artists including James Thatcher, David Childs, Ian Bousfield, Wycliffe Gordan and Jens Bjørn-Larsen. In addition, the Austrian ensemble Mnozil Brass will be playing a couple of their popular stage shows.

The fifth Melbourne International Festival of Brass is made up of a week's activities which are designed to provide an inspiration to Australian brass players. The first five days contain intensive masterclasses and workshops for the different brass instruments, running in parallel, whilst each day features a couple of recitals from the artists too.

No details of programmes have been released yet, but I look forward to hearing what new music is being planned.

Mnozil Brass's Thomas Gansch

Just rewards?

2007-07-05T12:08:00.000+01:00

Orchestras in Britain don't make a lot of money. It's been said that you have to love music to be a classical musician: you'll probably earn more doing pretty much any other job.

The financial difficulties of classical music are reported around the world, but in America there still seems to be more money sloshing - the orchestral players are more comfortably paid, and they have larger admin departments to run things. What I didn't realise is quite how much the people running the orchestra are taking home.

The Chicago Tribune reports that the most successful orchestra boss is Deborah Borda, executive director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, who received an amazing $1.3million in 2004-5. Other Big Five Orchestra bosses have salaries around the $400k - $700k mark.

Mind you, these executives have the difficult task of holding the collection tin out to businesses and wealthy individuals, but can raise $10m or more each year. And it seems that hiring the right candidate is hit and miss that when you find a star you want to be sure to keep him/her.

But, really, is the business person who guides the orchestra really worth that much more than the tremendously talented musicians on stage?

Ben van Dijk videos

2007-06-25T19:05:00.000+01:00

There are plenty of clips of trombonists on youTube.com, but many are rubbish and you can bet that most are uploaded without permission... Certainly ones that have been placed there by the artist are rare. So it is great to see Ben van Dijk has taken the initiative and has himself placed three videos of his sumptuous bass trombone playing for the world's enjoyment. And I'm particularly pleased to see that two of the performances are of recent commissions - enjoy.

Part of Steven Verhelst's Bastasia

Blue Topaz

Ilja Reijngoud's Ballad for Mr. Roberts

Maurice Murphy bows out with Elgar

2007-05-31T19:11:00.001+01:00

Trumpet legend Maurice Murphy has been retiring now for about seven years, but this weekend's concert looks most final.

he assures us that this time his retirement is for real!
LSO Newsletter

His last concert with the London Symphony Orchestra will be a performance of Elgar's Dream of Gerontius conducted by Richard Hickox this Sunday, in the orchestra's home at the Barbican. 2007 sees the thirtieth anniversary of a distinguished career at the LSO.

From Friday 8 June you can listen to our podcast tribute to Maurice on the LSO website, including an interview with Maurice himself, conductors Sir Colin Davis, Michael Tilson Thomas and Richard Hickox and Maurice's LSO colleagues.

Brass10 make BBC broadcast

2007-05-30T17:53:00.000+01:00

This Friday night brings a studio broadcast from young London-based brass dectet Brass¹⁰. They will perform a programme that pays homage to Philip Jones Brass Ensemble, following on from their PJBE Finale concert last year, on BBC Radio 2.

Listen to the Band.
Friday 01 June, 9:30pm - 10:00pm
BBC Radio 2

Fanfare and March – Joseph Horovitz
Dances from the Terpsichore – Michael Praetorius
A Londoner in New York – Jim Parker
Blue Rondo a la Turk – Dave Brubeck
The Days of Wine and Roses – Henry Mancini
American Patrol - Meacham

Cleveland auditions

2007-05-23T15:27:00.000+01:00

The Cleveland Orchestra has been looking for a new principal trombone for the past two years, and an interesting article has turned up about some of the problems they've had selecting.

Cornett radio programme

2007-05-16T11:43:00.000+01:00

The sound of the cornett was famously described by Mersenne as "a ray of sunshine piercing the shadows" and I am certainly a fan too. Top British player Jeremy West will be talking about this beautiful baroque/renaissance instrument on BBC Radio 3 this Sunday lunchtime.

Sunday 20 May 2007 12:00-1:00pm (BBC Radio 3)
Early Music Show

Catherine Bott talks to cornett player and founder of His Majesty's Sagbutts and Cornetts, Jeremy West, to discover more about the history behind this expressive and demanding instrument.

Music includes works by Scheidt, Ximenez, Giovanni Gabrieli and Merula.

Becquet CD out

2007-05-07T23:32:00.000+01:00

Last week I took part in some masterclasses with Michel Becquet and had plenty of opportunities to hear him perform in rehearsal and concert. The Frenchman's playing won me over completely, with some really classy music-making. He has a fluid singing sound and a strong character. No wonder he has just been announced this year's recipient of the ITA Award.

It's a real shame that he's not been recorded much. There are a couple of Paris trombone quartet CDs from the 1980's (which are still available from here), rumours of a recital from 30 years ago on vinyl, plus his sackbut playing on a couple of CDs with Les Sacqueboutiers. So it is quite nice to find last month that he has just released a new solo CD.

Accompanied by a French wind orchestra, Becquet plays the Ropartz, David, Guilmant, Rimsky-Korsakov and a lovely Handel Sonata, duetting with Paris Opera principal trombone Bruno Flahou. The CD sounds great - I thoroughly recommend it.

Available here.

UPDATE: Dale Sorensen has been in touch to recommended some more Becquet CDs, including a recital on a Japanese label, more from the Paris Trombone Quartet in the 90's and he particularly reccomends recordings of Leopold Mozart and Michael Haydn where he is guest soloist. Check out the discography here.

Trombonists clean up their act

2007-04-30T18:10:00.000+01:00

Trombone-shaped soap - who would have thought!

Trombonists honoured

2007-04-24T23:01:00.000+01:00

Iowa has passed a resolution in the Senate declaring the trombone as the US state's "premier instrument". The elevation of the instrument is apparently to honour four Iowan trombonists:

Meredith Willson didn't play trombone - he was the New York Philharmonic's principal flute actually - but his song "76 Trombones" from the 1950's Broadway show The Music Man was a big hit.

Glenn Miller was a trombonist but is most famous as a band leader and composer, creating a special sound that resonated around the world in the 1940's. His music remains the mainstay of many a gigging swing band these days.

Karl King was a famous American bandmaster in the early 20th century and is most famous for writing the cracking circus march "Barnum and Bailey's Favorite", apparently voted 4th most favourite in the world in an international survey in 1980. This bio has nothing about him playing trombone; just euphonium.

Jack Jenney was a jazz trombonist in the 1930's and early 40's. He is featured improvising on Artie Shaw's 1941 recording of "Stardust".

Lancier at the Wigmore

2007-04-19T12:18:00.000+01:00

It seems that recently Lancier Brass have been clearing up in all the right music competitions nationally, so I made a point of going to hear them at the Wigmore Hall this week.

Michael Tilson Thomas wrote his Street Song for the Empire Brass in 1988 and is a unique and charming piece. Starting off with a sparkling flourish that immediately freezes as a chilly and dissonant chord, slowly changing, but never fully resolving. More flourishes and suspensions lead into a scurrying vivace with the flourishes flying between the instruments. The frenetic busyness of streets in New York perhaps? The stop-start paves way for a beautiful yodel-like melody led by the horn, accompanied by warmer chords, but there is still a drifting spaciousness to the piece. Finally the piece gathers momentum with a bluesy swing section, but soon the impressionist feeling return and the salient lines drift casually among the players and occasionally coming back into a satisfying focus point. It's great stuff, but rarely heard.

Lancier seemed to delight in the jagged urban sounds in this taxing seventeen minute work and ably brought out all the varied colours and styles. The control was superb and virtuosic demands were coasted through. The piece lacked a little flow at times, making it feel too long, but no doubt this will improve with more performances.

I was delighted to see that Lancier Brass had commissioned Scottish composer Cameron Sinclair to write a short piece for them. Writing in an eerie and spacious spiritual sound world, I for one needed something a bit snappier to engage me after the long intensity of the Tilson Thomas. Perhaps Samonias would work better in different programme?

Tony Plog's Four Sketches is the best known piece on the programme and it certainly sounded like the quintet had the most experience in performing it. Another modern American composer, the music is full of bold writing, invention and everyone I spoke to really enjoyed the performance.

With some outstanding young players, it is no surprise that Lancier Brass sound good, but they are programming quality music which actually engages with audiences and play it rather stylishly. As the new kids on the block, Lancier haven't yet developed much new repertoire they can call their own, compared to more established brass groups. But they are doing a great job bringing almost-forgotten gems from the catalogue to the fore and perhaps that will continue to be a winning formula?

It's all in the support

2007-04-19T09:49:00.000+01:00

thanks to researchers at the Catholic University in Rome, we know they are also unusually prone to "wet burping".
The Guardian

But it is not the brass lads which are responsible for the rude noises, this time at least. No, it is the opera singers with the finger pointing at them.

According to an article in the journal Gastroenterology, the researchers also discovered that the frequency of "wet burping" was linked to the length of a singer's career and the number of hours spent either practising or performing.

Beware!

British Horn week on the radio

2007-04-13T10:22:00.000+01:00

The next few days' listening to Radio 3 seems to be biased towards French horn music and leads up to the broadcast of John McCabe's new concerto on Tuesday, played by David Pyatt.

Saturday
11.45am Disc of the Week
British Horn Concertos
David Pyatt (horn)
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Nicholas Braithwaite (conductor)

Monday
Between 8.30 and 10.00am
Mozart: Horn Concerto No 4 in E flat
Radovan Vlatkovic (horn)
English Chamber Orchestra
Jeffrey Tate (conductor)

10.00am
Strauss: Horn Concerto No 1 in E flat, Op 11
Dennis Brain (horn)
Philharmonia Orchestra
Wolfgang Sawallisch (conductor)

Tuesday
19:00
Performance on 3
McCabe Horn Concerto premiere

Petroc Trelawny introduces a concert featuring Mahler's Fifth Symphony preceded by a world premiere inspired by both jazz and by contemplation of the rainforest.

David Pyatt (horn)
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Tadaaki Otaka (conductor)

McCabe: Horn Concerto (BBC commission; world premiere)

Absurd virtuosity from Nakariakov

2007-04-11T11:43:00.000+01:00

Sergei Nakariakov will be visiting London this October to perform the UK Première of a 20 minute piece called "ad absurdum" by Jörg Widmann. It comes in a concert by the BBC Symphony Orchestra who also play Bruckner 7.

the new trumpet concerto from the German clarinettist-composer Jörg Widmann (born 1973) is a lighter work, premiered last year by its dedicatee, Sergei Nakariakov, and deliberately designed, as its title suggests, to stretch its soloist's virtuosity to the extremes.

5th October 2007, 7.30pm
Barbican Hall, London
BBCSO, Belohlavek

Brass Massive at TCM

2007-02-28T23:50:00.000Z

Trinity College is holding a pretty stonking brass festival next week. Starting on Monday 5th March with their Philip Jones Brass Chamber Competition, the week is based around workshops, masterclasses and plenty of brass performances, culminating in a Brass Massive! in the Blackheath Halls.

Players of cornetts and sackbuts from the Royal Academy, Royal College, and Guildhall School of Music will be playing Renaissance music in the very special acoustic of the Old Royal Naval Chapel, directed by Emily White.

On top of the stirling TCM brass faculty, the festival will be graced with two top International soloists. Portuguese tuba soloist Sérgio Carolina will be taking masterclasses and performing solos. And fiery jazz trumpeter Rex Richardson made such a big impression at last year's festival that he's coming back again this year.

There are performances from brass quintets, a trombone choir from Grenada as well as TCM, Martin Owen, Graham Lee, Steven Boyce, George Wall, Oren Marshall, and it's great to see the return of Surrey County Performing Arts Junior Brass Ensemble. The TCM brass ensemble will be performing Michael Daugherty's exciting Motown Metal. Also on the jazz side of things, there will be a concert featuring Mark Nightingale, Mike Hext and Steve Waterman.

Most of the events are free, so it's well worth checking out. More details here.