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 August 2023, Daellenbach is the sole original member in the group, with the other members being trumpeters Joe Burgstaller and Ashley Hall-Tighe, hornist Jeff Nelsen, and trombonist Achilles Liarmakopoulos.
Alfred Friedman was an American neoclassical composer, with more than two hundred published works for concert band, orchestra, chorus, and chamber ensemble to his name. He also traveled extensively as a guest conductor, performing in North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia.
John Harris Harbison is an American composer, known for his symphonies, operas, and large choral works.
The Venetian polychoral style was a type of music of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras which involved spatially separate choirs singing in alternation. It represented a major stylistic shift from the prevailing polyphonic writing of the middle Renaissance, and was one of the major stylistic developments which led directly to the formation of what is now known as the Baroque style. A commonly encountered term for the separated choirs is cori spezzati—literally, "broken choruses" as they were called, added the element of spatial contrast to Venetian music. These included the echo device, so important in the entire baroque tradition; the alternation of two contrasting bodies of sound, such as chorus against chorus, single line versus a full choir, solo voice opposing full choir, instruments pitted against voices and contrasting instrumental groups; the alternation of high and low voices; soft level of sound alternated with a loud one; the fragmentary versus the continuous; and blocked chords contrasting with flowing counterpoint.
Girolamo Dalla Casa, also known as Hieronymo de Udene, was an Italian composer, instrumentalist, and writer of the late Renaissance. He was a member of the Venetian School, and more influential as a performer than as a composer.
Philip Jones was a British trumpeter and leader of an internationally famous brass chamber music ensemble.
The Taverner Choir, Consort and Players is a British music ensemble which specialises in the performance of Early and Baroque music. The ensemble is made up of a Baroque orchestra, a vocal consort and a Choir. Performers place emphasis on a historically informed performance practice and players work with restored or replicated period instruments.
Empire Brass is a brass quintet from the United States. The group was founded in 1971. The original members met at Tanglewood Music Center in 1970.
Ulf Håkan Hardenberger is a Swedish trumpeter, conductor and professor at the Malmö Academy of Music. Taking up the trumpet at the age of eight under the guidance of hometown teacher Bo Nilsson, Hardenberger pursued further studies at the Paris Conservatoire, with Pierre Thibaud, and in Los Angeles with Thomas Stevens. Hardenberger is a pioneer of important virtuosic new trumpet works. He collaborated with contemporary composers Harrison Birtwistle, Brett Dean, HK Gruber (Aerial), Hans Werner Henze, Betsy Jolas, György Ligeti and Mark-Anthony Turnage. In 2021, he premiered Jörg Widmann's Towards Paradise in 2022 Helen Grime's Trumpet Concerto, night-sky-blue, and in 2023 premiered Wynton Marsalis's Trumpet Concerto for Europe. Hardenberger performed with New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Wiener Philharmoniker, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, NHK Symphony Orchestra and conductors Alan Gilbert, Daniel Harding, Paavo Järvi, Ingo Metzmacher, Andris Nelsons, John Storgårds and David Zinman. From 2016 to 2018, he was artistic director of the Malmö Chamber Music Festival. In the 2019/20 season, he conducted Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, Malmö Symphony Orchestra, Swedish Chamber Orchestra and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra. Hardenberger has been called "the cleanest, subtlest trumpeter on earth" by The Times.
The "Carnival of Venice" is based on a Neapolitan folk tune called "O Mamma, Mamma Cara" and popularized by violinist and composer Niccolò Paganini, who wrote twenty variations on the original tune. He titled it "Il Carnevale Di Venezia," Op. 10. In 1829, he wrote to a friend, "The variations I've composed on the graceful Neapolitan ditty, 'O Mamma, Mamma Cara,' outshine everything. I can't describe it."
James B. Furman was an American composer and college professor.
Roger Alfred Nixon was an American composer, musician, and professor of music. He wrote over 60 compositions for orchestra, band, choir and opera. Nixon received multiple awards and honors for his works, many of which contain a feel of the rhythms and dances of the early settlers of his native state of California.
The Bach-Elgar Choir is a community chorus of long standing in Hamilton, Ontario, currently directed by Alexander Cann. The Choir is composed of accomplished amateur singers from Hamilton and the neighbouring cities of Burlington, Oakville, Mississauga and Simcoe. Notable performances by the ensemble include the North American première of Verdi's Requiem and the Canadian premieres of Górecki's Miserere and Mahler's Symphony No. 2. The choir has performed at Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto, The Sanderson Centre in Brantford, and at the Brott Music Festival in Hamilton. The choir makes frequent guest appearances with the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra.
Peter Bassano is an English conductor.
William Frederick Mills was a Canadian trumpeter and educator best known for his work with the Canadian Brass quintet from 1972 to 1996. He also served as a professor for the University of Georgia from 1996 until 2009.
Music of the Baroque is an American professional chorus and orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois.
Marius van Altena, born Marius Hendrikus Schweppe is a Dutch tenor. He was one of the pioneers of historically informed performance of Baroque and Renaissance music. He has also sung Baroque opera, worked as conductor and as an academic teacher.
His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts (HMSC) is a British early music group founded in 1982. The ensemble presently consists of three cornetts and four sackbuts, with chamber organ or harpsichord. The group frequently collaborates with other instrumentalists and singers, and has an extensive discography on Hyperion Records and other labels.
