Meridian Brass Marketing

Meridian Brass

In our last class, we discussed how professional brass ensembles market and publicize themselves. I just discovered a very unique marketing technique by the Meridian Brass (No, it's not the Meridian Arts Ensemble). The strategy of a "theme" recording, combined with social media and interactive online multimedia creates an interesting advertisement for their next recording. You can view it here.

Blog Post Brainstorming

There are only two more weeks remaining for your blog assignment. Here are some ideas we discussed in class for blog posts:

1. Blog about a work for brass ensemble that you like that we did not listen to or discuss in class. If you would nominate it for a "landmark work" explain why.
2. Find a mediocre performance of a brass ensemble work on YouTube and then write a "virtual coaching" post. Be sure to provide positive feedback as well as constructive criticism.
3. Compare a  brass ensemble arrangement to the original work. Compare two recordings of the same arrangement.
4. Discuss your experiences organizing a brass ensemble tour and share what you learned on the tour.
5. Compare and contrast two pieces from the same time period, country, or composer.
6. Write a review of a book or journal article related to brass ensemble literature, performing, or a related musical issue.
7. Share what you know about composers who have written for brass ensemble for a particular region of the world.
8. Get inspired by read each other's blog posts and create a post of your own on a similar topic.
9. Give us a preview of your upcoming listening presentation.
10. Read some of the older posts on ABEL Central and write a post inspired by a class form a previous year.

Behind the Scenes of Victor Ewald's Complete Quintets

Two of my colleagues in the Atlantic Brass Quintet recently recorded the complete Ewald Brass Quintets with Mark Gould, Dave Taylor, and Chris Komer. Here's a peek...

David Byrne, of Talking Heads fame and St. Vincent have teamed up and created a very unique pop album called Love This Giant that is centered around a brass band. The writing is very unique, and not at all like your typical rock horn section writing. It is minimalist in nature and the counterpoint and instrumentation is very complicated. Here is a clip from their recent appearance on David Letterman. Wikipedia has a link listing the personnel for the original recording.

Berlin Philharmonic Brass

Welcome Spring 2013 students to Advanced Brass Ensemble Literature!