Sunday, January 25, 2014 at 4:00 pm

Program

Works by Byrd, Scarlatti, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Gershwin, Bernstein, and Copland

The five musicians of the Quintet — all of whom have held leading positions with major American orchestras — perform over 100 concerts a year in cities such as New York, Boston, Chicago, Washington, London, Zurich and Tokyo. With their best-selling recordings on the Telarc label they have introduced an even larger audience worldwide to the excitement of brass music that ranges from Bach and Handel to jazz and Broadway. They are equally at home in the majestically antiphonal works that Gabrieli composed for St. Mark’s Cathedral in Venice and the exuberantly show stopping tunes that Richard Rodgers and Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote for Broadway. The Empire Brass is the first brass ensemble to win the prestigious Naumberg Chamber Music Award.

In addition to playing across the United States, the Empire Brass has toured the Far East thirteen times, and performs regularly in Europe. It has played to standing-room crowds in the former Soviet Union, where its concerts were broadcast on television. The ensemble has performed with major symphony orchestras such as the Chicago Symphony, Boston Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Toronto Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony and Zurich’s Tönhalle Orchester. It regularly visits leading summer festivals including Ravinia, Tanglewood, Caramoor, Saratoga and Chautauqua.

On network television, the Empire Brass has been featured on CBS’s Good Morning America, NBC’s Today Show and Sunday Today and PBS’s Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood. It is a regular guest on commercial and public radio networks nationwide, performing on programs such as St. Paul Sunday Morning, Traditions and NPR’s Performance Today.