by Stephanie Manning
With more than 65 years as an ensemble under their belt and a commitment to commissioning new works, the American Brass Quintet has a lot of repertoire to choose from. “We’ve got such an extraordinary wealth of music,” bass trombonist John Rojak said. For at least the past 15 years, “every piece that has been coming in is one we want to keep playing.”
Several of those works appear on the group’s current program, which they are set to bring to the Oberlin Artist Recital Series on February 20. Trumpeters Brandon Ridenour and Tiago Linck, hornist Eric Reed, trombonist Hillary Simms, and Rojak will take to the Finney Chapel stage to present works by Anthony Barfield, Philip Lasser, Jennifer Higdon, Osvaldo Lacerda, and David Biedenbender. Tickets are available online.
Although the majority of the evening’s works are less than a decade old, the concert first finds its footing in the 16th century, with John Dowland’s Earl of Essex Galliard & Can She Excuse My Wrongs. Rojak described how Brandon Ridenour combined the two pieces into his own, “really cool” edition. [Read more…]
Asked at the post-concert talkback about her musical influences, composer Kamala Sankaram described an eclectic hodgepodge — Kaija Saariaho, Radiohead, and the Cameroonian electronic musician Francis Bebey, to name a few. “For the most part, things that I write sound very different from each other,” she said. “So it’s interesting that these two pieces sound kind of similar.”
Despite the frigid Wednesday weather dumping snow outside the Cleveland Museum of Art, January 14 almost felt like a pleasant spring day inside Gartner Auditorium. That phenomenon had nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with Trio Seoul, whose warm camaraderie and excellent musicianship brightened the venue considerably.
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Performing a work as ubiquitous as Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons requires a delicate balance. At its best, the musicality and intention must be crystal clear, so that the end result feels as fresh as it does familiar. It’s a high bar, but one that Les Arts Florissants cleared with the utmost ease.
Reposted with the permission of Oberlin Conservatory
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