A musical ensemble, also known as a music group or musical group, is a group of people who perform instrumental and/or vocal music, with the ensemble typically known by a distinct name. Some music ensembles consist solely of instrumentalists, such as the jazz quartet or the orchestra. Other music ensembles consist solely of singers, such as choirs and doo wop groups. In both popular music and classical music, there are ensembles in which both instrumentalists and singers perform, such as the rock band or the Baroque chamber group for basso continuo and one or more singers. In classical music, trios or quartets either blend the sounds of musical instrument families or group together instruments from the same instrument family, such as string ensembles or wind ensembles. Some ensembles blend the sounds of a variety of instrument families, such as the orchestra, which uses a string section, brass instruments, woodwinds and percussion instruments, or the concert band, which uses brass, woodwinds and percussion.
The Canadian Brass is a Canadian brass quintet formed in 1970 in Toronto, Ontario, by Charles Daellenbach (tuba) and Gene Watts (trombone), with horn player Graeme Page and trumpeters Stuart Laughton and Bill Phillips completing the quintet. As of 2018, Daellenbach is the sole original member in the group, with the other members being trumpeters Caleb Hudson and Fabio Brum, hornist Jeff Nelsen, and trombonist Achilles Liarmakopoulos.
A brass quintet is a five-piece musical ensemble composed of brass instruments. The instrumentation for a brass quintet typically includes two trumpets or cornets, one French horn, one trombone or euphonium/baritone horn, and one tuba or bass trombone. Musicians in a brass quintet may often play multiple instruments. Trumpet players for instance may double on piccolo trumpets and flugelhorns. There can be variation in instrumentation depending on the type of quintet. In some quintets, the horn is replaced by an additional trombone. Euphonium may also be substituted for the trombone part. While the tuba is considered a standard, the range and style of many pieces lend themselves to being played with bass trombone as the lowest-pitched instrument. Additionally, some pieces call for the use of percussion instruments, particularly the snare drum, tambourine, or timpani.
Arnold Maurice Jacobs was an American tubist who spent most of his career with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He held that position from 1944 until his retirement in 1988.
Robert Murray Gordon "Rob" McConnell, was a Canadian jazz trombonist, composer, and arranger. McConnell is best known for establishing and leading the big band The Boss Brass, which he directed from 1967 to 1999.
Jay Krush is a native of the Philadelphia area whose busy career includes performing, composing, arranging, teaching and conducting.
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 New York Brass Quintet is regarded as the first brass quintet in the United States, having formed in 1954. Other groups soon followed like the Chicago Brass Quintet, formed in 1963. 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.
John Marcellus is a trombone musician and teacher. He was Professor of Trombone at the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester, and past Chair of the Woodwind, Brass, and Percussion Department. In addition to his trombone teaching responsibilities at Eastman, Dr. Marcellus was the conductor of the Eastman Trombone Choir, Eastman Bionic Bones, and the trombonist with the Eastman Brass. Dr. Marcellus joined the faculty of the Eastman School in 1978, and was named the Kilbourn Professor from 1982-83. He succeeded the trombonist and teacher, Emory Remington, who served as Professor of Trombone at Eastman close to 50 years. Professor Marcellus retired in 2014 after 36 years at Eastman.
Eric Ewazen is an American composer and teacher.
Ralph C. Sauer is an American trombonist, arranger and teacher. He was Principal Trombonist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic for 32 years.
Velvet Brown is a professor of tuba and euphonium at Pennsylvania State University. Prior to joining the faculty at Penn State in 2003, she taught at Bowling Green State University (Ohio) and Ball State University (Indiana), and served as an associate director of university bands at Boston University. Brown is currently a member of the International Tuba Euphonium Association Board of Directors and has served as the secretary of the executive committee for ITEA (2001–2007). She is also a founding board member of the International Women’s Brass Conference. Brown is noted for receiving the 1999–2000 William Fulbright Fellowship Vinciguerra Award. She has had many successful students who have won prestigious playing and teaching positions or become prizewinners at various regional, national and international competitions.
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.
David Jason Snow is an American composer. Snow studied composition with Samuel Adler, Warren Benson, and Joseph Schwantner at the Eastman School of Music, Jacob Druckman at the Yale School of Music, and Arthur Berger and Martin Boykan at Brandeis University. At the Eastman School, Snow was awarded the Sernoffsky, McCurdy, and Howard Hanson prizes in composition; Yale awarded him a Bradley-Keeler Memorial Scholarship and the Frances E. Osborne Kellogg Prize in composition. Snow has been the recipient of awards, fellowships, residencies and commissions from BMI, the National Association of Composers/USA, the National Federation of Music Clubs, the Annapolis Fine Arts Foundation, the ASCAP Foundation, the College Band Directors Association, the National Endowment for the Arts, Res Musica Baltimore, the Maryland State Arts Council, the Renée B. Fisher Foundation, Trio Indiana, SoundMoves, Pastiche, the Arts Council of Montgomery County (Maryland), Yaddo, and the Millay Colony for the Arts.
Eugene "Gene" Watts is an American-Canadian trombonist and a founding member of the Canadian Brass, a brass quintet based in Canada.
Gary Kulesha is a Canadian composer, pianist, conductor, and educator. Since 1995, he has been Composer Advisor to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. He has been Composer-in-Residence with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony (1988–1992) and the Canadian Opera Company (1993–1995). He was awarded the National Arts Centre Orchestra Composer Award in 2002. He currently teaches on the music faculty at the University of Toronto.
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 and the New York Brass Quintet, with both groups essentially establishing the brass quintet as a part of the chamber music field. Notably, only two brass quintets have ever been awarded the Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award, considered by many to be the highest achievement in brass chamber music: The Empire Brass Quintet in 1976 and The Saturday Brass Quintet in 1990. But it was Canadian Brass that developed the pragmatic approach to repertoire allowed the ensemble to reach a wider audience. They developed a two prong approach to performance, developing a masterpiece approach to repertoire that popularized the brass quintet as an ensemble into what was essentially a "pops" 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, though few of the Canadian Brass commissions of original compositions have taken hold in the repertoire of other brass quintets.
Summit Records, Inc. is an internationally distributed record label that evolved out of the large brass ensemble Summit Brass in the late 1980s. It was established by David Hickman and Ralph Sauer.
Greg Danner is a contemporary American composer, educator, and professional musician. He is currently the composer-in-residence and professor at Tennessee Tech University in Cookeville, Tennessee. He is the 2010 Composer's Guild Grand Prize winner.
James Scott Irvine is a Canadian composer, arranger, and tuba player based in Owen Sound, Ontario. An associate of the Canadian Music Centre and a member of the Canadian League of Composers, he has been commissioned to compose works by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Laidlaw Foundation, and the Ontario Arts Council. His works have been recorded on a number of commercial releases, including CDs by Joan Watson, Jack Grunsky, the Canadian Chamber Ensemble, and the Berlin Philharmonic. Most of his compositions are written for concert band and brass instruments.
Raymond Luedeke is an American / Canadian composer of contemporary classical music. Praised for his idiosyncratic instrumental writing and for his orchestration, Luedeke has more recently concentrated on works for music theatre. Although born in New York City, he spent 29 years as Associate Principal Clarinet with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, a position he left in 2010. A dual citizen of the United States and Canada, Ray Luedeke is artistic director of Voice Afire Opera-Cabaret in New York City.
