Calendar of Events

Penick Academic Complex, G.M. Savage Chapel

Master Class | 5:30 p.m. | Hartley Recital Hall
Concert | 7:30 p.m. | Savage Memorial Chapel

Although the members of the Saint Louis Brass look formal when they perform, audiences are pleasantly surprised at the relaxed and informal atmosphere they create. With extraordinary grace, the ensemble transforms the stuffiness associated with classical chamber music, combining professionalism and showmanship to produce a thoroughly enjoyable musical experience.

The Saint Louis Brass will perform a great variety of selections featuring music from their CD "Pops Music of the Americas" and from several other CDs plus their new DVD. Especially for this tour, they will present the premier of Joshua Hobbs “Four Times Five”. Commissioned by the quintet in 2015, it was just recently completed. Also new for this tour is Anthony Plog's "Animal Ditties" with music behind the clever Ogden Nash poems. On the lighter side is a new jazz medley - "Tribute to Pops": hits of Louis Armstrong, plus everybody’s favorite “St Louis Blues”. New to the Quintet is the hard driving tango "Libertango" by the noted Argentinian composer Astor Piazzolla.

More information about the Saint Louis Brass and this concert can be found at www.SaintLouisBrass.com

The Quintet brings with it many of the ancestors of the brass family of instruments starting with the animal's horn and the conch shell to the short trumpet found in King Tut's tomb and onward into the present. The group has even found a straight trombone from the fourteenth century - a time before man had learned to bend the metal.

Since 1964, the Saint Louis Brass has been performing throughout the country and continues to thrive as a top-notch ensemble. Members of the group include trumpet players Allan Dean, from Yale University and Ray Sasaki from the University of Texas. Jeff Nelsen played horn with Canadian Brass for eight year before becoming a professor at Indiana University. Melvyn Jernigan, formerly with the Saint Louis Symphony, plays trombone and the tubist is Indiana University's Daniel Perantoni. Several of the members are well known as soloists and clinicians and also perform with Summit Brass.