Thursday, April 20, 2017

Brass Ensemble Music from Other Cultures

Fanfare Ciocarlia

On Wednesday I gave a listening presentation titled "Brass Ensemble Music from Other Cultures". Below is a table with the playlist, providing information on the selection, ensemble, recording and origin, as well as links to each ensemble.

The details of each work are listed in this order:
Title
Ensemble
Recording
Origin

Rusasca de la Buzdug
Fanfare Ciocarlia
Radio Pascani  
Romania (Balkan Brass Band)

Mundo Cocek
Boban I Marko Markovic Orkestar
Golden Horns - Best of Boban i Marko Markovic Orkestar
Serbia (Balkan Brass Band)

Sword Fight
Bollywood Brass Band
Movie Masala
England (Indian)

El Carretero   
Pepe Gutiérrez & Mariachi De Pepe Villa
Vintage Mexico No. 158
Mexico (Mariachi)

Entierrenme Con La Banda   
Banda el Recodo
Del Pueblo
Mexico (Banda)

Y Te Vas

Banda Carnaval
Las Vueltas de le Vida
Mexico (Banda)

Tangimausia
Beulah College Band
Ifi Palasa - Tongan Brass
Tonga (Traditional)

In your Garden Twenty Fecund Fruit Trees
Frank London's Klezmer Brass Allstars
Frank London's Klezmer Brass Allstars
USA (Klezmer)

Always Remember
The Tigers
Dancing with Daddy G
USA (Trombone Shout Band/Gospel)

Doghouse Polka
Kris and the Riverbend Dutchmen
Partners, Brothers, And Friends
USA (Polka)

We also viewed these two videos:

Guca (Balkan) Brass Festival 

Wedding Band Jaipur (India) 

Finally, at the conclusion of class, I mentioned the correlation between the similarity of styles and instrumentation in German/Austrian Polka and Northern Mexican Banda style. This is explained below in the article "Does Mexican Music have German Roots?" by

Mexican Music Style Influenced by Germans

Music from the northern part of Mexico, norteño, meaning "northern," or música norteña, "northern music," was influenced by German settlers in Texas around 1830. It is no coincidence that some types of Mexican music have the German polka "oom-pah-pah" influence.

Migration Phenomenon

There was a large migration of Germans to southern Texas from the 1830s to the 1840s. According to the Texas State Historical Association, the largest ethnic group in Texas born in Europe or whose parents came from Europe hailed from Germany. By 1850, Germans made up more than 5 percent of the entire population of Texas. This part of Texas became known as the German Belt.



Monday, April 10, 2017

Gagarara, Pitch Black and Berio Call

Today in class, we listened to an eclectic mix of recordings including works by Brian Martinez, Luciano Berio and Jacob TV. First up was a YouTube video of the U.S. premiere of Gagarara by Spanish composer and winner of the Isla Verde Brass Festival composition competition, Brian Martinez. Below you can view both the Tritantic Brass Ensemble video as well as the world premiere in Argentina:

   



We spent the rest of the class time listening to a recent recording called "Pitch Black" by Brass United (Channel Classics CCS 38717). From it we heard Call (St. Louis Fanfare)
by Luciano Berio and the title track, Pitch Black by Jacob TV. Pitch Black uses an interview by Chet Baker as source material, which is then looped and manipulated to provide a rhythmic and contextual backdrop for the brass quintet, which was transcribed from the original saxophone quartet. 


Also on this recording is Pulcinella 2.0, which consists of ten arrangements for brass quintet and harpsichord of the original source music that Stravinsky used for his landmark work. Some of the pieces include works by Pergolesi, Gallo, Monza.