American Brass Quintet
Encyclopedia
When the American Brass Quintet gave its first public performance on December 11, 1960, brass chamber music was still relatively unknown to concert audiences. That debut 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 S. 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.
Equally committed to the promotion of brass music through education, the American Brass Quintet has been in residence at The Juilliard School
since 1987 and at the Aspen Music Festival since 1970. Many young ensembles, including the Extension Ensemble, Manhattan Brass Quintet, Meridian Arts Ensemble
, and Urban Brass Quintet have worked with the ABQ through these residencies, and have gone on to establish their own presence in the brass chamber field. Since 2001 the ABQ has offered its expertise in chamber music performance and training with a program of mini-residencies as part of its regular touring season. Designed to offer young groups and individuals an intense chamber music experience over several days, ABQ mini-residencies have been embraced by schools and communities throughout the United States and internationally.
Through its acclaimed performances, signature programming, extensive discography, and educational mission, the ABQ has created a legacy unparalleled in the brass field. Hailed as "the high priests of brass" by Newsweek
, "positively breathtaking", by the New York Times, and "of all the brass quintets, this country's most distinguished" by the American Record Guide, the American Brass Quintet has clearly defined itself among the elite chamber music ensembles of our time. The current ABQ consists of Raymond Mase and Kevin Cobb
on trumpet
, John Rojak on bass trombone, Michael Powell on tenor trombone
, and David Wakefield on horn
.
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, Central and South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
, the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
, Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and all fifty of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
; 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
Samuel Adler (composer)
Samuel Hans Adler is an American composer and conductor.-Biography:Adler was born to a Jewish family in Mannheim, Germany, the son of Hugo Chaim Adler, a cantor and composer, and Selma Adler. The family fled to the United States in 1939, where Hugo became the cantor of Temple Emanuel in...
, Bruce Adolphe
Bruce Adolphe
Bruce Adolphe is a U.S. composer and music scholar, the author of several books on music, and pianist. His current positions include Resident Lecturer and Director of Family Concerts of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and founder and creative director of The Learning Maestros,...
, Daniel Asia
Daniel Asia
Daniel Asia is an American composer.Daniel Asia was born in Seattle, Washington, in the United States of America. He received a B.A. degree from Hampshire College and a M.M. from the Yale University School of Music...
, Jan Bach
Jan Bach
Jan Bach is an American composer. He taught at the University of Tampa from 1965 to 1966 and at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois from 1966 to 2002. His primary performing instrument is the horn, and he is especially renowned for his horn pieces and especially well-known among...
, Robert Beaser
Robert Beaser
Robert Beaser is an American composer.-Biography:Beaser was brought up in a non-musical family. His father was a physician and mother was a chemist. He grew up in Newton, Massachusetts where he distinguished himself at a young age as a percussionist, composer and conductor...
, William Bolcom
William Bolcom
William Elden Bolcom is an American composer and pianist. He has received the Pulitzer Prize, the National Medal of Arts, two Grammy Awards, the Detroit Music Award and was named 2007 Composer of the Year by Musical America. Bolcom taught composition at the University of Michigan from 1973–2008...
, Elliott Carter
Elliott Carter
Elliott Cook Carter, Jr. is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer born and living in New York City. He studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in the 1930s, and then returned to the United States. After a neoclassical phase, he went on to write atonal, rhythmically complex music...
, Billy Childs, Robert Dennis, Jacob Druckman
Jacob Druckman
Jacob Druckman was an American composer born in Philadelphia. A graduate of the Juilliard School, Druckman studied with Vincent Persichetti, Peter Mennin, and Bernard Wagenaar. In 1949 and 1950 he studied with Aaron Copland at Tanglewood and later continued his studies at the École Normale de...
, Eric Ewazen
Eric Ewazen
Eric Ewazen is an American composer and teacher. Ewazen studied composition under Samuel Adler, Milton Babbitt, Gunther Schuller, Joseph Schwantner, Warren Benson, and Eugene Kurtz at the Eastman School of Music and The Juilliard School...
, Anthony Plog
Anthony Plog
Anthony Plog is a renowned American conductor, composer and trumpet player.The music of Anthony Plog has been performed in over 30 countries around the world...
, Huang Ruo
Huang Ruo
Huang Ruo, sometimes known as Ruo Huang is a Chinese-born American composer, pianist and vocalist who now lives in the United States.-Biography:...
, David S. Sampson
David S. Sampson
David Sampson is a prolific composer and trumpet player currently living in New Jersey. He is currently Composer-in-Residence with the Colonial Symphony Orchestra and plays with them as well....
, Gunther Schuller
Gunther Schuller
Gunther Schuller is an American composer, conductor, horn player, author, historian, and jazz musician.- Biography and works :...
, William Schuman
William Schuman
William Howard Schuman was an American composer and music administrator.-Life:Born in Manhattan in New York City to Samuel and Rachel Schuman, Schuman was named after the twenty-seventh U.S. president, William Howard Taft, although his family preferred to call him Bill...
, Ralph Shapey
Ralph Shapey
Ralph Shapey was an American composer and conductor. He is well-known for his work as a composition professor at the University of Chicago, where he founded and directed the Contemporary Chamber Players...
, Joan Tower
Joan Tower
Joan Tower is a Grammy-winning contemporary American composer, concert pianist and conductor. Lauded by the New Yorker as "one of the most successful woman composers of all time", her bold and energetic compositions have been performed in concert halls around the world...
, Melinda Wagner
Melinda Wagner
Melinda Wagner is a US composer, and winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize in music. Her undergraduate degree is from Hamilton College....
, and Charles Whittenberg
Charles Whittenberg
Charles Whittenberg was an American composer and holder of two Guggenheim Fellowships....
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.
Equally committed to the promotion of brass music through education, the American Brass Quintet has been in residence at The Juilliard School
Juilliard School
The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...
since 1987 and at the Aspen Music Festival since 1970. Many young ensembles, including the Extension Ensemble, Manhattan Brass Quintet, Meridian Arts Ensemble
Meridian Arts Ensemble
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.-History:The Meridian Arts Ensemble was founded in 1987...
, and Urban Brass Quintet have worked with the ABQ through these residencies, and have gone on to establish their own presence in the brass chamber field. Since 2001 the ABQ has offered its expertise in chamber music performance and training with a program of mini-residencies as part of its regular touring season. Designed to offer young groups and individuals an intense chamber music experience over several days, ABQ mini-residencies have been embraced by schools and communities throughout the United States and internationally.
Through its acclaimed performances, signature programming, extensive discography, and educational mission, the ABQ has created a legacy unparalleled in the brass field. Hailed as "the high priests of brass" by Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
, "positively breathtaking", by the New York Times, and "of all the brass quintets, this country's most distinguished" by the American Record Guide, the American Brass Quintet has clearly defined itself among the elite chamber music ensembles of our time. The current ABQ consists of Raymond Mase and Kevin Cobb
Kevin Cobb
American trumpet player Kevin Cobb joined the American Brass Quintet in the fall of 1998 and with that appointment also became a faculty member of The Juilliard School and the Aspen Music Festival. He is also currently serving as faculty at the Hartt School, the Mason Gross School of the Arts at...
on trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
, John Rojak on bass trombone, Michael Powell on tenor trombone
Trombone
The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...
, and David Wakefield on horn
Horn (instrument)
The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....
.
External links
See also
- Brass Quintet RepertoireBrass Quintet RepertoireThe 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...
- chamber musicChamber musicChamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...
- Canadian BrassCanadian BrassThe Canadian Brass is a brass quintet founded by Dr. Charles Daellenbach and Gene Watts in 1970. In addition to maintaining a heavy international touring schedule, the Canadian Brass have recorded over 80 CDs and DVDs...
- brass instrumentBrass instrumentA brass instrument is a musical instrument whose sound is produced by sympathetic vibration of air in a tubular resonator in sympathy with the vibration of the player's lips...