Boston Brass- The Internationally Renowned Brass Quintet
Join us 7:30 p.m. Thursday, September 12, 2024, in the Administration Auditorium
A one-of-a-kind musical experience
Since 1986, the internationally renowned brass quintet, Boston Brass has set out to establish a one-of-a-kind musical experience featuring colorful classical arrangements, burning jazz standards, and the best of original brass repertoire. Boston Brass treats audiences to a unique brand of musical entertainment that bridges the ocean of classical formality to delight regular concertgoers and newcomers alike with great music and boisterous fun. The quintet has played to audiences in all 50 U.S. states, and over 30 countries. Though the band regularly concertizes as a quintet, Boston Brass also performs with orchestras, concert and marching bands, organists, and jazz bands, and regularly collaborates with composers to create new works for the brass canon.
Commitment to music education
Music education is at the core of Boston Brass’s identity, and the quintet continues to conduct sessions around the world, including past masterclasses and residencies at such prestigious institutions as the Eastman School of Music, The Juilliard School, the Royal Academy of Music in London, and Yong Siew Toh Conservatory in Singapore. In conjunction with the Yamaha Corporation, the quintet engaged in a 2018 tour of major Chinese music conservatories, and in 2021 the members of Boston Brass were appointed to the International Artist Advisory Council to the College of Music at Mahidol University in Thailand. The Boston Brass have been featured as educators and performers at the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic, World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles, the American Bandmaster Association Conference, American Band College, Western International Band Clinic, and at innumerable state music education conferences. After a long hiatus, 2022 finally saw the return of the Boston Brass Summer Intensive in its new home at North Dakota State University’s Challey School of Music.
New releases and projects
The quintet’s newest release Blues for Sam (2022) features a mix of classical and jazz arrangements alongside old Boston Brass favorites, and is dedicated to the late Sam Pilafian who can also be heard on the albums Simple Gifts (2018), Reminiscing (2016), and Rewired (2015). Latin Nights (2008) features a collection of some of the greatest classical and jazz works by Latin composers and features the legendary drummer Steve Gadd, the beautiful voice of Talita Real, plus percussion and guitar. Other albums include Ya Gotta Try, featuring music from Horace Silver, Chick Corea and Dizzy Gillespie, produced by legendary jazz recording genius Rudy van Gelder, and Within Earshot, featuring classical works by Shostakovich, Ginastera, Dvorak, Liszt, and others. Boston Brass has two holiday recordings, Christmas Bells are Swingin’, and The Stan Kenton Christmas Carols, featuring the Boston Brass All-Stars Big Band playing the phenomenal charts made popular by the Stan Kenton Orchestra. Boston Brass tours a vibrant holiday show each year featuring many of the Stan Kenton classics and sporting a full big band stocked with powerhouse guests, making this program a perennial audience favorite.
Boston Brass undertook a new project in 2022, forming a consortium of ensembles to commission a new work by Grammy winning composer Gordon Goodwin. Featuring the quintet with wind ensemble and jazz rhythm section, Perplexing Times is a new composition unlike anything before, yet brimming with Goodwin’s trademark tongue in cheek compositional style.
Boston Brass is a Yamaha Performing Group and performs exclusively on Yamaha instruments.
Boston Brass plays mouthpieces by Pickett Brass.
Learn more at www.bostonbrass.com
| Galop | Dimitri Shostakovich (arr. J.D. Shaw) |
| Wachet Auf | J.S. Bach (arr. Jose Sibaja) |
| Blue Bells of Scotland | Arthur Pryor (arr. Sam Pilafian) |
| Milonga del Angel | Astor Piazzolla (arr. Jose Sibaja) |
| Verano Porteno | Astor Piazzolla (arr. Jose Sibaja) |
| Flight of the Green Hornet | Billy May (arr. Chris Castellanos) |
| I Remember Clifford | Benny Golson |
| Sway | Pablo Beltran Ruiz (arr. Sam Pilafian) |
| Blues for Ben | Stanton Moore (arr. Sam Pilafian) |
| Caravan | Duke Ellington (arr. JD Shaw) |