Brass and Cat's Affairs

Caprice of Clown - Brass Septet by Daisuke Ehara Caprice of Clown is a album for Brass Septet music by Daisuke Ehara. This recording is played by the Hiroshima Wind Orchestra from Japan.  Instruments: 2 Bb Trumpets, F Horn, 2 Trombones, Euphonium, and Tuba. This is a song of various expressions. Caprice, or capricious means a merry style. At times, harmonies are varied and deceptive to analyze. This makes for a slightly unusual sound. For such light music, there are various "tricks". In the middle of the work, a floating feel is expressed by use of a whole tone scale. Besides that, there are many more "tricks" hidden in the music. Try to find them. Use of hidden elements and the style itself reminds one of a clown. Hence the title "Clown of Caprice". Try to have powerfully expressive performances with a light feel, making use of the brass septet's character. ( Daisuke Ehara ) Hiroshima Wind Orchestra (HWO) was formed in 1993 by professional musicians...

  A Duet for Our Time by Eric Ewazen  - György Gyivicsan , Brandt Attema & Szeged Trombone Ensemble This music is for solo tenor & bass trombone with trombone sextet (8 parts total). "Ewazen takes his Palisades Suite (A Trio for Our Time) and fashions a duet for solo tenor trombone and solo bass trombone, with trombone sextet in support." -the publisher Movements entitled: of Beauty; of Chaos; of Anguish; of Hope . György Gyivicsan,  graduated from the University of Szeged – Faculty of Music in 2001. After this he got admitted to the college of Freiburg as one of the pupils of the famous trombonist Branimir Slokar. In 2003 he won the prestigious  International competition in Porcia (Italy).  In 2004 he received an invitation from prof. Slokar to become a perpetual member of the Slokar Quartet. Till the end of 2019 they have made numerous CD albums and hundreds of concerts all over the world. In 2015 Gyivicsan started teaching at  University of Szege...

K 1 (2009) by Roland Szentpáli for two solo tubas, two bass trombones & trombone quartet  This recording was the live music of the opening concert at the Gravíssimo in 2015, in the Alcobaça João D'Oliva Monteiro Theater.  This concert is for Alcobaça International Low Brass Academy & Festival, 5th edition. Roland Szentpáli, bass tuba (fighter 1) Tiago Noites, bass trombone 1 (coach of fighter 1) Sérgio Carolino, contrabass tuba (fighter 2) Nuno Martins, bass trombone 2 (coach of figher 2) The Wild Bones Gang Quartet Hugo Assunção, Emanuel Rocha, Rui Fernandes & Ruben Tomé, tenor trombones (the audience) João Paulo Fernandes is the musical director (the judge) The title of this work, K-1, relates to the Japanese martial art of that name. Even though I am not a fan of this kind of sports, when Steve Rosse asked me to write something for 6 trombones and 2 tubas, (knowing what a strong player he is), something extremely wild, cruel and raw sounded spontaneously in my...

  Purple Bamboo melody - Canadian Brass - From the " Great Wall of China " The ensemble's Canada/China folk song medley (which has a bitter-sweet edge, given that thousands of Chinese workers laboured in appalling conditions constructing our railways) included The Red River Valley and Purple Bamboo Melody, from the Shandong province. I found this recording very interesting because of the sound that it uses the trombone to imitate the sound of the traditional Chinese instrument Erhu (a string instrument). As a Chinese, I think this recording tried its best to show the style and technique both in their playing and the arrangement of the music composition. I really appreciate that. This whole album "Great Wall of China" collected a lot of very classical Chinese traditional folk music. In 1977, as China emerged from the Cultural Revolution, Canadian Brass arrived in Beijing for a concert tour that was part of a cultural exchange. They were the first Western musicia...

The Chief by John Stevens. This recording is played by Ben van Dijk that is collected in his album, Nana. This is a Bass trombone solo with the trombone choir ensmeble (six trombones, including one bass trombone). Nana is  Ben’s first solo cd Nana recorded in 1999 with Pierre Volders, Remko de Jager, Alexander Verbeek, Martin Schippers, Mark Boonstra and Brandt Attema Blue Topaz by Tommy Pederson.  This piece is composed in the 20th century for solo bass trombone and trombone sextet (7 parts total) by the famous jazz trombonist Tommy Pederson (August 15, 1920 – January 16, 1998).  Violent Shadows by Chris Evan Hass for Solo Bass Trombone and Trombone Quintet. Violent Shadows was originally written for AJ Muusse in 2017. The wind ensemble version of the piece was written in 2019 for Evan Clifton and a consortium of 9 bass trombonists. Inspired by progressive rock, Violent Shadows showcases the different characters of the bass trombone, from the loud and aggressive ...

French composer and conductor, Henri Tomasi (1901-1971) published Concerto for Bassoon 1963. As with his other wind compositions, Être, ou ne pas être ('To be or not to be') for Bass Trombone or Tuba and 3 Trombones was well-received by audiences. This recording is played by the current and previous low brass sectional members of Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and Vancouver Opera Orchestra. Ilan Morgenstern , who is the currently bass trombonist of Vancouver Symphony played the solo in t his recording.  The tenor trombones are: Brian Wendel https://www.brianwendelmusic.com/ Andrew Poirier https://music.ubc.ca/profile/andrew-poirier/ Jeremy Berkman https://music.ubc.ca/profile/jeremy-berkman/ This music is inspired by The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, often shortened to Hamlet written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. (From  Wikipedia ) Hamlet To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrow...

Iron Horse is a brass quintet piece composed by American composer Kevin Mckee (b.1980). You can hear two different trains in this two different movements. Here is the composer's explanation of this composition in below, which is from the website: https://www.kevinmckeemusic.com/iron-horse I. The Blue Goose     In my hometown, Yreka, CA, there used to be a beautiful steam engine called the Blue Goose that took visitors on a slow excursion through Shasta Valley.  Picture a vast valley of rolling hills surrounded by snowcapped mountains (not too unlike the Rohan realm from the Lord of the Rings).  During many summers of my childhood my father and a friend of his used to go down to the depot with their guitars and entertain Blue Goose passengers with old-timey songs.  I’d often tag along and watch as the train pulled out of the station. To this day there are few things that will set my imagination off as much as train tracks disappearing around a bend. ...