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'E' Brass Quintet (2016)

The “E” Brass Quintet is an exciting new ensemble with players from the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra who are passionate about their music making.

Thomas Eves who is Principal Trumpet in the CSO completed a Master of Performance at the Royal College of Music, London and has performed as a soloist and with many orchestras in several countries.

Tyme Marsters has emerged as a leading figure in NZ brass banding, has won several competitions and is Music Director of the Woolston Brass Band.

Bernard Shapiro has been a member of CSO since 1988 where he now holds the Associate Principal French horn position.

Karl Margevka was Principal Trombone of the National Symphony of Ukraine from 1983-1995 when he departed for NZ and joined the CSO as Principal Trombone.

Nigel Seaton has been a member of many of NZ’s top bands and for the past three years has been Principal Tuba of the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra.

The Quintet will perform compositions by Dukas, Bach, Barber, Arnold, Purcell, Ritchie, Rimsky-Korsakov and Mancini.

View Programme Notes

In association with Chamber Music New Zealand

Review of 'E' Brass Quintet:

Christchurch Symphony Orchestra was in town on Sunday to thrill a bumper audience at the fifth Tauranga Musica concert at Pyes Pa.

The 'E' Brass Quintet brought a mix of works spanning five centuries, some of them originals, as well as other transcriptions.

An opening fanfare by Paul Dukas – think 'The Sorcerer's Apprentice' – gave an immediate sense of the power of brass.

'Partita for Brass' by New Zealand composer John Ritchie was convincing proof that delicate rhythms tossed at an ungainly tuba can sometimes be returned with flair and grace.

Transcriptions had a harder time. Samuel Barber's familiar 'Adagio for Strings' – so full of heart-wrenching pathos – was suddenly without feeling in this brass version, and even lacked the clinching final note.

Bach's chorale prelude 'Out of the Depths I Cry to Thee' also lacked the pathos any organist would have injected to override the opening forte dynamic.

Yet familiarity always triumphs, and in Rimsky Korsakov's 'Scheherazade' the tuba was key to bringing prince and princess together.

Equally satisfying was the traditional, 'I'm Gonna Sing, I'm Gonna Dance'.

But a brass transcription of Henry Mancini's catchy 'Pink Panther' is what finally brought smiles to Sunday's dreary weather.

The last of this wonderful series is October 16 at Tauranga Park Auditorium, Pyes Pa.

- 26th Sep 2016, by Prof. Barry Vercoe, Mus.D.