Explorations in New Brass Music

Free entrance for students (bring your student card)

Michael Gurfield has been selected as the curator for this evening of music. As an active member of New York’s vibrant contemporary music scene, Gurfield has been a champion of American music through his role as Principal Trumpet of Signal Ensemble and Alarm Will Sound and as Co-Founder, Artistic Director, and member of the 7-piece Deviant Septet.

Gurfield has based the evening’s program around the concept of deconstruction / reconstruction. This idea is in reference to both musical material and form, as well as overall aesthetic, which each piece demonstrates in unique ways.  Highlights of the evening include two World Premieres by American composers, Matt Marks and John Altieri. The world premiere by Matt Marks breaks the normative idea of what constitutes a brass quintet, adding vocal parts for players and setting text. John Altieri’s quintet I Close My Eyes to See You uses spatial movement and theatricality, as it segments the ensemble into smaller subsets, deconstructing the brass quintet.

Other pieces on the program also demonstrate deconstruction / reconstruction themes. Liza Lim’s Wild Winged One takes the simple idea of a bird call, and mimics it both with mouth-whistle and quarter-tone alterations on the trumpet.  Vinko Globakar’s Dos a Dos dismantles the trumpet and trombone into their simplest segments (a mouthpiece and a pipe), connects the two instruments through a piece of rubber tubing, and at times has one player play the other’s instrument. Karlzhein Stockhausen’s Trumpetent and Mauricio Kagel’s Fanfanfaren both harken back to the trumpet’s earliest days as a signaling device, albeit with a modern twist. Anne Cleare’s Mire |…| Veins uses a variety of mutes and quarter-tone figuration to deconstruct the prototypical brass quintet timbre. Globakar’s Res/As/Ins-Pirer places the audience inside the resonating chamber of the instrument, enveloping them in sound.  Timothy McCormack’s Uns-Apparatus imagines the brass quintet as a single breathing, bulging, undulating organ of the body.

Brooklyn Brass Quintet
Mike Gurfield (tp), Matt Mead (tp), Matt Marks (frh), Will Lang (tb), John Altieri (tuba)

The Practical Trumpet Society
Gareth Flowers, Matt Mead, Stephanie Richards, Michael Gurfield

Solo Trumpet
Jason Price

Trumpet/Trombone Duo
Jason Price (tp), Jen Baker (tb)