Dazzling display of brass and percussion

Dazzling display of brass and percussion

Audiences can expect a ‘dazzling display’ when they hear the Brass Extravaganza performance in the Wellington Town Hall this Friday evening, 7 October, says Andrew Jarvis, Head of Brass at the New Zealand School of Music.

The ‘Brass Extravaganza' Friday at 5 concert is part of the Wellington City Council’s Festival of Carnivale for the REAL New Zealand Festival held over the Rugby World Cup period. It is free and will take place from 5:00–6:00pm in the Wellington Town Hall, this Friday 7 October.

The concert features the NZSM Brass Ensemble and members of the brass and percussion sections of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, all brought together under the direction of conductor Yoram Levy. It will be the final 2011 concert in the popular Friday at 5 series of free concerts in the Wellington Town Hall showcasing the extraordinary talent amongst NZSM’s staff, senior students and colleagues.

“The featured work is a brass and percussion arrangement of Mussorgsky’s Pictures At An Exhibition,” Jarvis explains. “It is a suite of short pieces which musically describe a person walking around an exhibition of paintings and drawings: from a sinister gnome to an old ruined castle on a riverbank, to the terrifying Hut on Chicken’s Legs – part of an old Russian legend – to the grandeur of the Great Gate of Kiev. It was originally a piano work but the suite is best known in Ravel’s orchestrated version This arrangement is quite a revelation as it makes full use of the particular colours and textures that brass and percussion instruments encompass. The audience is really in for a treat.“

[cid:433B457E-3882-46D3-B5E5-3F609797E2C7@massey.ac.nz]

Guest conductor Yoram Levy is currently Principal Trumpet of the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and Brass Coordinator and trumpet lecturer at the Tasmanian Conservatorium of Music following a stellar career playing with orchestras and chamber ensembles around the world.

“The students of the NZSM Brass Ensemble are thrilled to be performing under such an experienced musician and alongside the best brass and percussion players in the country,” Jarvis comments. “It will be a highlight for an outstanding year which has already included

international tours: working with Mnozil Brass and Empire Brass at the Melbourne International Festival of Brass and representing NZSM in a tour and performance exchange with Queensland Conservatorium at Griffith University in Brisbane.

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