Boston Brass

Boston Brass is setting new standards in entertainment. From exciting classical arrangements, to breathtaking vocal harmony, to burning jazz standards, Boston Brass achieves new levels in brass performance while treating audiences to a unique musical experience that captivates all ages. The ensemble's lively repartee, touched with humor and personality, bridges the vast ocean of classical formality to delight audiences to an evening of boisterous fun, exciting knowledge and an enthusiastic love of music, deftly exhibited by five brash brass players. Boston Brass has transcended the traditional mores of brass ensemble literature and, with a host of original arrangements, has pioneered a new generation of music that sets out to achieve one simple goal: entertain at all costs with blistering precision. Whether they are performing solo or with a symphony orchestra, the fun and emotion exhibited from this group is uniquely infectious and keeps audiences on their feet, demanding encore after encore. Performing over 100 concerts annually, the members of Boston Brass have dazzled audiences at concerts and jazz festivals around the world in such cities as Tokyo, Singapore, Taipei, Macau, New York, Portland, Seattle, Philadelphia, Detroit, Dallas, San Antonio, Washington DC, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, Sacramento, and Los Angeles. As committed to education as they are to performance, they have conducted master classes at colleges and universities around the country including The Eastman School of Music, Rice University, Peabody Conservatory of Music, University of Connecticut, Syracuse University, University of North Carolina, University of Florida, University of North Texas, Boston University, Yale University, University of Michigan and U.C.L.A. Boston Brass has also conducted clinics and concerts at national and regional music educational conferences in New York, Massachusetts, Georgia, Florida, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Missouri, Iowa, South Carolina, Ohio and Texas. Boston Brass helped raise over $100,000 for VH1’s Save the Music program, giving musical instruments to schools in need. Boston Brass has been featured educators and performers at the Mid West Band and Orchestra Conference, American Bandmaster Association Conference in Gainesville, FL, Southern Oregon University’s American Band College in Ashland, OR, and at the Texas Bandmasters Association Convention in San Antonio, TX. In October 2006 Boston Brass became Artist/Educational Ambassadors for Jupiter Band Instruments. During the 2005 season Boston Brass made their debut appearances in the Far East, with an eight city concert tour of Taiwan, and as featured guest ensemble at the World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles (WASBE) 2005 conference in Singapore. They also much acclaimed concert appearances in Hong Kong and Macau. In December 2005 Boston Brass made their debut tour of Japan with an eight city tour. Boston Brass has been featured on The CBS Morning Show, National Public Radio's Performance Today, The Great American Brass Band Festival and has recorded several ground breaking, extraordinary, delightful albums. Two of these albums appear on the Summit Records label: Stealing the Show, a collection of overtures and arias, and Young Fogeys, a collage of jazz and swing favorites. The ensemble’s latest release on the Loft Recordings label entitled Out of This World, features heroic music for brass and organ. Along with Seattle's St. Mark's Cathedral organist J. Melvin Butler, the band explores symphonic textures from all eras of music and even includes a commission from Hollywood composer Bruce Edward Miller entitled Pluto: The Last Planet. The summer of 2000 proved to be an exciting time as Boston Brass teamed up with the legendary jazz recording genius Rudy van Gelder to produce Ya Gotta Try. This collaboration, which features music from Horace Silver, Chick Corea, Dizzy Gillespie and many others, further explores the innovative jazz styles that have propelled Boston Brass to the forefront of their genre. The 2003 release of Within Earshot features classical pieces by Shostakovich, Ginastera, Dvorak, Liszt and others. In that same year, Boston Brass collaborated with the Syracuse University Wind Ensemble for a new recording of Christmas classics titled Christmas Bells are Swingin’, which was released in 2004 and featured many of the most beloved tunes of the holiday season. In winter 2005, the Boston Brass All-Stars Big Band was born when the five members of the ensemble were joined by twelve other well known brass players and musicians to record A Stan Kenton Christmas. This recording of holiday music, conducted by brass master Sam Pilafian, features truly phenomenal charts made popular by the Stan Kenton Orchestra and performed with the enormously powerful sound of thirteen horns and jazz rhythm section. Boston Brass and the Brass All-Stars Big Band will begin touring “A Stan Kenton Christmas” in December 2006 and future holiday seasons. -Taken Verbatim, "http://bostonbrass.com/background.html" Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.