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The Music Academy Closes the Season with the Residency
of the Canadian Brass
By Gerald Carpenter, The Independent, August 17, 2000
Photo by David Bazemore
I would not be at all surprised to learn that this was the
most successful Summer Festival in the 53-year history of
the Music Academy of the West. It certainly felt that way
- as if attendance was way up and the receipts, too; as if
the Academy was not just solvent but flourishing. If it is
all an illusion then may I never come to my senses.
For the purist, whose only criterion for success is the quality
of musical performance, then on those grounds also must Summer
2000 be counted a triumph. It was a summer of stellar performances
and a summer of stars. From Carol Burnett's Tarzan yodel at
the Gala Opening, through the decadent thrills of a Strauss
opera and the burnished flash and fire of The Canadian Brass,
to the Stars of the Future on Concerto Night, a thick haze
of glamour hung above every event. And the miraculous students!
Every one of them on a full scholarship, talent crackling
along every string and reed like power along a high-tension
wire. [...]
Then, for the last two weeks of the Festival, like a comet
slowly blazing its way across the starry firmament, the brilliant
quintet known as The Canadian Brass came for a concert and
a residency, during which they will have taught a total of
10 free masterclasses. The Canadian Brass is scheduled to
repeat this residency in 2001 and 2002.
In their concert, the audience was bigger and more polyglot
than the loyal crowd of upscale drifters who fill the halls
for most of the Academy's events. The Canadians' reputation
had preceded them, all 30 years of it, and drew people who
do not normally frequent the Music Academy's summer festival
--- or, for that matter, any classical performance by area
ensembles. In that sense, though certainly not in the matter
of repertory, they resemble the Kronos Quartet: they seem
to have brought their own audience with them.
The Canadian Brass has made more than 50 recordings, covering
everything from the Baroque masters Purcell, Vivaldi, Gabrieli,
and Pachelbel, to the Romantic turbulence of Beethoven and
Wagner, and on into the 20th century, even the 21st, commissioning
works from contemporary greats Lukas Foss, Peter Schickele,
and William Bolcom. Having all that to choose from, it is
curious that they elected to play, before what was nominally
a Music Academy audience, a program fully half devoted to
transcriptions of pop tunes, musical theater, and a burlesque
of a popular opera. Delivered with witty repartee, the ensemble
seemed intent on breaking down conventional performance barriers.
"We found early on that we had a tremendous desire to
connect with audiences," said Chuck "Tuba"
Daellenbach, the humorous brass leader most given to chuckle-inducing
segues. "The best is to be ourselves, not to try to be
something else. We rehearse our music carefully, and have
fun between the pieces. We are our own personality onstage."
With regard to the program, the Music Academy audiences are
used to programs that require a little more attention. It
is no challenge to get people to listen to Lennon-McCartney
or George Gershwin; the challenge is to play Gabrieli and
Purcell for them and make the music contemporary by making
it live.
Whether The Canadian Brass phenomenon can ever be fully integrated
into the Music Academy's somewhat different agenda remains
to be seen. But there is no doubt the group were well-received
and enjoyed its first year of residency.
"Over the past 30 years, we've been involved in many
festivals of differing kinds, and have been so pleasantly
greeted by the quality of the students that are here. In fact
we're searching for a term other than 'students'; they are
professional level."
The true test of The Canadian Brass's assimilation into the
Music Academy, I think, will be what program the band selects
for its concert next year. I can hardly wait.
FOR REFERENCE ONLY. NOT TO BE
REPUBLISHED.
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