A brass quintet is a five-piece musical ensemble composed of brass instruments. As a common ensemble group, the brass quintet has a broad repertoire containing musical genres from madrigals to jazz.
When the American Brass Quintet gave its first public performance on December 11, 1960, brass chamber music was still relatively young to concert audiences. The Chicago Brass Quintet had originated the concept of a brass quintet in 1948, followed by the New York Brass Quintet in 1954. To delineate itself from these other two groundbreaking ensembles American Brass Quintet dedicated itself to "music originally written for brass," and substituted a bass trombone for the conventional tuba voice. That debut concert for them in 1960 marked the beginning of an international career for the ensemble that includes performances in Europe, Central and South America, the Middle East, Asia, Australia and all fifty of the United States; a discography now numbering fifty-one recordings; the premieres of over one hundred new brass works, and the inspiration to a whole new generation of brass quintets worldwide. ABQ commissions by Samuel Adler, Bruce Adolphe, Daniel Asia, Jan Bach, Robert Beaser, William Bolcom, Elliott Carter, Billy Childs, Robert Dennis, Jacob Druckman, Eric Ewazen, Anthony Plog, Huang Ruo, David Sampson, Gunther Schuller, William Schuman, Ralph Shapey, Joan Tower, Melinda Wagner, and Charles Whittenberg are considered among the most significant contributions to the brass quintet repertoire. In the past fifteen years alone, the ABQ has released recordings of over twenty-five major new brass quintets. The presentation of challenging contemporary brass music alongside earlier eras carefully edited by ABQ members for modern performance, has become a trademark of ABQ programming, and has helped establish the American Brass Quintet as the leader in the field of serious brass chamber music today.
The Atlantic Brass Quintet is an American brass quintet that has been in existence for over 30 years.
Eric Ewazen is an American composer and teacher.
The Meridian Arts Ensemble is an American chamber music ensemble based in New York City, specializing in the performance of new works for brass and percussion.
Frida is the original soundtrack album, on the Universal label, of the 2002 Academy Award- and Golden Globe Award-winning film Frida starring Salma Hayek, Alfred Molina, Mía Maestro and Ashley Judd. The original score was composed by Elliot Goldenthal. The soundtrack features songs by various artists.
Heat is the soundtrack album to the 1995 film Heat. The score is compiled mostly with Elliot Goldenthal's orchestrations although there are a variety of other artists featured including U2/Brian Eno project Passengers, Lisa Gerrard, Moby and Terje Rypdal.
Titus is the original soundtrack to the 1999 motion picture Titus. Elliot Goldenthal wrote the score for the film, an adaptation of Shakespeare's first, and bloodiest, tragedy Titus Andronicus; written and directed by Julie Taymor, Goldenthal's long-time friend and partner. The only non-Goldenthal piece is an old Italian song called "Vivere" performed by Italian singer Carlo Buti.
Elliot Goldenthal scored the soundtrack for the movie Demolition Man. It is an example of his off-beat style and use of unconventional techniques in film score, incorporating big brass clashes and complex, dramatic string arrangements.
The score to the movie The Good Thief was produced and arranged by Elliot Goldenthal; whilst the score music is generally received favourably one major complaint is that it is too short and that the other tracks supersede Goldenthal's scoring work, it contains eight pieces by him and other artists including Cheb Khaled, Serge Gainsbourg, Johnny Hallyday and Bono; the song Bono covers is the Frank Sinatra song "That's Life", produced, with a string arrangement, by Goldenthal. The original score cues were performed by both The London Metropolitan Orchestra and The Irish Film Orchestra.
The score to the psychological thriller In Dreams, by Elliot Goldenthal, is an avant-garde work filled with his trademark techniques and dissonance. Composed in 1999, and working again with frequent collaborator Neil Jordan, it also features songs by Roy Orbison and The Andrews Sisters.
Pet Sematary is a soundtrack for the film Pet Sematary. Produced by Elliot Goldenthal, it was released in 1989.
Batman Forever: Original Motion Picture Score Album is a 1995 Grammy-nominated film score album for Batman Forever, composed by Elliot Goldenthal. It was released in conjunction with its soundtrack counterpart. Despite Goldenthal having recorded over 2 hours of music, the soundtrack only had 45 minutes before La-La Land Records released an expanded version in 2012. The score features big brass, strings and discordant noises while maintaining an anthemic sound. Regarding the villainous leitmotifs, Goldenthal said Two-Face focuses on paired notes and doubled beats while being inspired by Russian composers such as Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitri Shostakovich, and Riddler has a sound reminiscent of old science fiction B-movies with a theremin. On the U2 single "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me", there is a track titled "Theme from Batman Forever" composed by Goldenthal; this can also be found on the expanded release issued in 2012.
The score to the film Cobb by Elliot Goldenthal was released in 1994.
Elliot Goldenthal scored the 1997 movie The Butcher Boy; the soundtrack was released in 1998. It marks another collaboration with director Neil Jordan.
Juan Darién: A Carnival Mass is a musical with music and lyrics by Elliot Goldenthal and a book by Goldenthal and Julie Taymor. The musical premiered Off-Broadway in 1988 in the former St. Clement's Church. It was subsequently reworked and refined before playing on Broadway in 1996 at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre, directed by Taymor. The musical, based on a modern fable of the same name by Horacio Quirogà, is set in the jungle in South America, with a jaunty skeletal Death ever present. Its story concerns an orphaned jaguar cub who is miraculously transformed into a human child by the compassion of a woman who has lost her own baby; the boy must then confront the savagery of human civilization. The production employs masked actors and puppets, and the score includes elements of Latin American folk music and the Requiem Mass. The piece was revived and toured extensively.
Along with a concerted effort to commission new works for brass quintet since 1967 the bulk of any brass quintet's repertoire consists of arrangements of pre-existing music. Victor Ewald's four brass quintets are the first serious attempts at establishing a repertoire for the ensemble, though they do not stand up to typical string quartet repertoire of the same and preceding eras. The Chicago and New York Brass Quintets made sustained efforts to commission new works, and much of the original repertoire for brass quintet from the mid-20th century derives from their groundbreaking work. In the 1960s the mantle of creating a repertoire for brass quintet was taken up by the American Brass Quintet. But it was Canadian Brass that developed the pragmatic approach to repertoire that has set the standard. They developed a two prong approach to performance,developing a masterpiece approach to repertoire that popularized the brass quintet as an ensemble. Meanwhile, the ensemble has been pursuing an aggressive 45-year commissioning schedule. Though this ensemble is seldom recognized for its achievement in the contemporary sphere, they have created well over 100 newly composed works for brass quintet.
Robert Nagel was an American trumpet player, composer, and teacher. He was an early advocate for brass chamber music, especially the brass quintet. Nagel was the founder and director of the New York Brass Quintet, as well as a founding member of the International Trumpet Guild. He served as a faculty member of the Yale School of Music from 1957 - 1988. As a composer and arranger, Nagel wrote solo and small ensemble music, trumpet method books, and orchestral works.
