MassBrass.

(4 June 2006)

Today I went to a concert called MassBrass. It was in a beautiful church, St. Anne's Anglican, apparently known at the "Group of Seven" church. The concert was AMAZING. I'd actually seen some of the performers a few days earlier, at another concert (called Heavy Metal) part of the same festival, the Toronto Fanfare Project (see the Soundstreams website). The featured group was the Stockholm Chamber Brass, a brass (duh) quintet, and other performers included the True North Brass, Stuart Laughton of the Canadian Brass, and Gary Peterson, another trumpeter. They are fabulous. The concert ended with the world premiere performance of a specially-commissioned R. Murray Schafer piece for all 15 brass musicians plus percussion. Oh, it was so good. I can't get over the incredibleness of that last piece, as well as the skill and musicality of these people. The Schafer piece was especially thrilling because the players moved around the church while they played. It was such an interesting sound experience. I totally recommend new classical music. And I can't say enough good things about the Stockholm Chamber Brass. What an amazing ensemble. Today's concert was filmed, so perhaps I'll get to see it on TV one day.

The first concert (Heavy Metal) that I saw was amazing too, but in a different way. SCB was the featured group there, too, and of course it was an almost all-brass concert, but the venue was much smaller, and the concert was more informal than today's massive undertaking. Before experiencing the Schafer piece, I was thinking that I liked the first concert better. Because in that one, there was more interaction between the players and the audience, in that a few musicians and conductors addressed the audience, telling us a little about the music they were playing, and the composers who wrote the pieces. I think this is the best kind of concert, where the people on stage are not just musicians, but have speaking voices too. I wish there was more classical music in bigger venues that was like this.

I can't wait for my next injection of culture! Toronto is such a great city for this kind of stuff, especially in the summer.