About Brazzissimo
Why
should anyone come to listen to Brazzissimo?
The short answer is the unique "sound" of ten brass players.
Brazzissimo is modeled after the famous "Philip Jones Brass Ensemble"
formed in London England. Philip
Jones was personally responsible for conceiving Brass Tentet in 1951.
He was the principal trumpet player in most of the London orchestras, and
as he put it, he was tired of playing boring trumpet parts and wanted to create
an ensemble that displayed the unique musical possibilities of a brass
ensemble. He first started with a
quintet, which then grew into a "tentet", twice the size of a brass
quintet, but only about half the size of a British Brass Band.
It is not possible to perform major symphonic works with a Brass Quintet,
since there are only five possible voices. Important parts would need to be
eliminated. However, with ten instruments, or voices, it is literally
possible to perform transcriptions of major orchestral works such as Pictures at
an Exhibition, by Mussorgsky; Bach's Brandenburg #3; Handel's "Arrival of
the Queen of Sheeba", etc. or almost any orchestral work.
Obviously, someone has to create the necessary "transcription"
or reduce the orchestral score from 96 players to ten players in such a way that
is musically pleasing. This is
quite a challenge for the arranger. There
are only a handful of original compositions for brass tentet and Brazzissimo has
most of these in our library. These
original compositions comprise about 20% of our library; but the vast majority
of the music we perform was originally written for much larger groups such as
symphony orchestra or concert band.
There
are literally thousands of brass quintets around the world, but very few
"tentets". The
reasons for this are several. 1) as a practical matter it is far easier to get
five players together than it is ten; 2) the musical arrangements available for
brass quintet number in the thousands, whereas the arrangements or original
compositions published and available for Brass Choir (tentet) number only about
two to three hundred. 3)
Most brass quintets rehearse in one of the player's homes, whereas a
group of ten brass players is too big to rehearse in someone's living room.
Brazzissimo has been fortunate to find places to rehearse and this has
been more problematic than one might imagine.
Our first year, we rehearsed at Corpus Christi Church; our second year we
were at Cal State University in Hayward, and we currently rehearse at Piedmont
High School in Piedmont.
The
secret to success of a group our size is having a group of dedicated musicians
who are willing to rehearse on a regular basis and are
willing to make whatever investments are necessary to precisely play and
entertain with this unique form of chamber music.
Brazzissimo is made up primarily of older musicians (professional and
semi professional) who come from all walks of life.
Some of us have had professional careers in music, but most of the
members of the group have "day jobs" or are retired and get together
once a week to have a good time playing great music in this unique brass
ensemble.
Every
member of our group is a virtuoso soloist in his own right, and almost all of
our members have already performed solos with our group since we started in
September of 2001. At our
last concert, June 26, 2004, three of our members soloed which included a
trumpet solo “Tico-Tico”; a Flugelhorn solo "Nobody Knows the Trouble
I've Seen", and a Tuba solo, Bach's Badinerie from his second suite.
We try to emulate the Arthur Fiedler "POPS" formula in our
programming, which essentially begins with more serious classical pieces,
followed by soloists, followed by popular are more upbeat classical tunes. Our
main objective is to challenge ourselves musically, have a good time doing it,
and entertain our audiences. One of
the comments heard most from our audiences is that we look like we are all
having such a good time, and we are! Finally, most people have never heard a
ten-piece brass ensemble "live”. Most audiences who hear Brazzissimo for
the first time are impressed by the variety and volume of sounds which the
ensemble produces. The
instrumentation of our group is four trumpets (piccolo tpt., Eb trumpet, Bb
trumpet and flugelhorn; or any combination of these four types of trumpets);one
French Horn, three Trombones, one Euphonium (baritone to most people),and one
Tuba. These are the basic ten brass
instruments of Brazzissimo.
The
name Brazzissimo was chosen from a list of more than 300 names.
We wanted a name which implied or suggested who and what we are: 1) we
are a brass ensemble (hence the first part of the word), 2) we are a large brass
ensemble (hence the "issimo" last part of the word), 3) we have a
unique blend of classical and jazz musicians within the group and play all types
of music (from classical to jazz or big band charts), hence the two "zz's"
in the first part of the word. We wanted our name to suggest something big and
exciting, which is what we think our brass group is. We wanted a
"coined" word, not an overused word. We wanted a single word, not two
or three words. We wanted our name to be truly unique and not used by any other
group. So, BRAZZISSIMO, is the name
we feel best fits and describes our brass ensemble.
Hopefully,
this has given you, the reader, a sense of what we are and what we do.
Please watch this website for further concerts and come join us for a fun
evening of great brass music.