This was our third year playing Carols and Christmas music for Morningside United Church which provides a very splendid acoustic for brass quintet. We would like to thank Director of Music & Organist Brigitte Harris for having us and wish her every happiness on her retirement. We played some sparkling new arrangements of carols just published and we felt they blended well with the old to make the sounds of Christmas fill the hearts and church with joy.
We had a very enjoyable performance in the beautiful acoustic of St Michaels. We played quite a few new pieces in front of a large audience which is no mean achievement at the end of the Edinburgh Festival. We always play different programmes in our Festival gigs so people do come to both and we greatly appreciate this. We played a new arrangement of The Dark Island by Michael Bennett which went down very well with our audience.As we finished our encore we were very pleased to have notched up 11 years of Brass Tracks on the Edinburgh Fringe. Many thanks to Alex Stead for depping on French Horn.
This year our theme was Film Music. This covered a lot of ground as most famous musicals were filmed along with so many iconic scores for film it was what to leave out rather than worrying about us having enough material! It was great to show the versatility of the Brass Quintet going from very sensitive quiet music to full power John Williams movie scores with Broadway musicals & Abba in-between! We got a very good response from this concert and attracted some people to a Brass Quintet concert for the first time!
We ventured to Cumbria to a very beautiful place called Grange over Sands. The Victoria Hall was our venue for the day and we started at lunchtime with a sell out workshop for local primary schools in the area with the local council supplying buses to get the schools to and from the hall. We had a lot of fun playing and demonstrating instruments with great participation from the kids and a wonderful reception. They engaged from the start and we are happy that we have some very experienced workshop leaders in our group. In the evening we gave a concert that was again sold out with a very receptive audience to our varied programme to play something for everyone covering many styles and showing the range of a Brass Quintet. It was good to see some of the kids who attended the workshop back for the concert. The long drive home to Scotland seemed over in a flash as we were energised by the warm welcome we received in the stunningly beautiful Grange over Sands. Thanks to James Cunningham for deputising on Tuba.
Feedback from the Workshop. Ron wrote, “A wonderful day. The schools workshop was perfect – about 150 pupils aged 7 to 11 from 6 local schools. The best turnout we’ve had and it was a joy to see them always engaging and interacting. It will have been enduringly memorable for them.
The evening concert was excellent too with a great programme which we all enjoyed enormously.
Please pass on huge thanks to all at Brass Tracks – some great characters there!”
The Music Hub aims to connect the community through music by providing a place for people to share music, listening, playing and creating. An inclusive, friendly hub for all members of the community run by Clea Friend. It was a really nice lunchtime concert venue where we played some of our favourite pieces from music covering a 500 year period. We had a very warm response from the audience and the church has a natural bright acoustic for brass which made for a very enjoyable gig. Thanks to James Goodenough for depping on Horn.
We recorded the Haddington Psalms during lockdown which entailed recording our individual parts on our iphones in our living rooms while filming ourselves doing it! It was then edited together and put online and miraculously it worked! This major work running just over 30 mins long for Choir, The Garleton Singers, and large brass ensemble, Organ & Percussion was written by Scottish composer Nigel Don. In June 2022 we had the privilege of playing it live in St Mary`s Church Haddington to a full and enthusiastic audience. We augmented Brass Tracks as we needed 4 trumpets,3 Trombones, Tuba & French Horn. The brass writing was extremely well constructed and we thoroughly enjoyed playing it. It was well conducted by Stephen Doughty and we also did several other pieces in the first half for choir and Brass. Both versions are still available on the internet.