Canadian Brass has entertained packed houses since 1970 with serious, popular and contemporary music executed with virtuosity and class by five guys wearing tuxedos and white buck shoes.
The quintet’s return engagement at Strathmore following last season’s standing room only concert is guaranteed to delight fans of all ages.
Several ensemble positions have changed ownership over the years, but two founders, Gene Watts on trumpet and Chuck Daellenbach on tuba, continue to hold forth on tour, in the recording studio, on television and in masterclasses with French hornist Bernhard Scully and an alternating twosome from the newly created Trumpet Dream Team. These seven remarkable musicians anchored by Joe Burgstaller include Ronald Romm, one of the original CB trumpeters, along with Ryan Anthony, Jeroen Berwaerts, Stuart Laughton, Manon Lafrance and Brandon Ridenour.
Ridenour, about to graduate from the Juilliard School of Music, won the 2006 International Trumpet Guild Conference. A veteran performer with his father, pianist Rich Ridenour, he has balanced his final year at Juilliard with numerous Canadian Brass concerts, including tours to Poland and China.
“It was a surprise and an honor to be chosen for the Dream Team while I’m still in school,” he says. “The first Canadian Brass recording I heard was ‘The Essential Canadian Brass,’ a collection of great hits from Bach to W. C. Handy. I was in the eighth grade at the time and completely in awe of them, but we didn’t meet until this past summer at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, where they’re in residence each year.
“Already I’ve played with them 30 or 40 times, counting master classes and the tours overseas. The audiences in Krakow, Poland were very friendly and appreciative. In Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, we were welcomed like rock stars.”
Ridenour grew up playing works his father transcribed for the trumpet and piano that were never intended for those instruments, so he is well suited for the distinctive Canadian Brass arrangements, among them jazzy numbers written by Luther Henderson, Duke Ellington’s main arranger and right hand man. Many of the more recent arrangements are by trumpeter Joe Burgstaller.
The Strathmore concert, like every Canadian Brass concert, will begin with the traditional “Just a Closer Walk With Thee” in New Orleans ragtime style. From there, the evening explodes into a potpourri of classics, jazz and fresh arrangements interspersed with witty patter and the eagerly awaited musical skit with a special twist.
Canadian Brass
» When: 8 p.m. tonight
» Venue: Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda
» Tickets: $28 to $60
» Info: 301-581-5100, www.strathmore.org
