Opening Day Entertainment Group: Canadian Brass - Takes Flight - Audio CD

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Product Details:

• Product Type: Audio CD (Digipak)
• Label: Opening Day Entertainment Group
• Catalog Number: ODR 7416
• Artist: Canadian Brass
• Members: Chuck Daellenbach (tuba), Christopher Coletti & Brandon Ridenour (trumpets), Achilles Liarmakopoulos (trombone), Eric Reed (horn)
• Genre: Classical / Chamber / Brass Ensemble
• Release: 2011
• Publisher: Opening Day Entertainment Group, 345 Bloor Street East, PO Box 72516, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4W 3S9
• Barcode (UPC): 776143741628
• Condition: Factory Sealed

Product Features

• Format: Single CD (square digipak)
• Total Playing Time: 58:07
• Made in the USA
• Instruments: Gold-plated Conn-Selmer instruments (Vincent Bach trumpets & trombone, C.G. Conn horn & tuba)
• Published by: Canadian Brass Publications / Distributed by Hal Leonard Publishing Corp.
• Financial support: Canada Music Fund / Department of Canadian Heritage / Canada's Private Radio Broadcasters

Overview

Takes Flight is the first album Canadian Brass recorded on their custom-made gold-plated Conn-Selmer instruments, and the difference is audible. The ensemble's signature blend - warm, centred, and precisely balanced across two trumpets, horn, trombone, and tuba - has a particular richness here that suits both the showpiece and the lyrical ends of their wide repertoire.

The programme is deliberately eclectic, which has always been the Canadian Brass way. Flight of the Bumblebee opens things with a statement of technical intent - five brass players negotiating Rimsky-Korsakov's famous perpetual motion at pace. From there the disc moves through Renaissance polyphony (Gabrieli's Canzona Prima a 5, Scheidt's Galliard Battaglia, Dowland's Come Again, Sweet Love), Baroque counterpoint (two Bach pieces including Air on a G String), Mozart's Turkish Rondo, Brahms, two tangos by Kompanek, and a sequence of spirituals and Americana in the final stretch.

Brandon Ridenour contributes his own original piece, "Brandon's Lament," at five minutes the longest single track on the disc and a showcase for his lyrical writing as well as his playing. The ensemble's two Henderson pieces - Saints Hallelujah and Tuba Tiger Rag - close the programme with the kind of good-natured virtuosity that has kept Canadian Brass selling out concert halls for five decades.

The gold-plated instruments were custom-built by Conn-Selmer specifically for the group, and this recording serves as both their public debut and an argument for what the ensemble is capable of in their best form.

Interesting Facts

• Canadian Brass was founded in Toronto in 1970 by Chuck Daellenbach and Eugene Watts; it is one of the longest-running and most commercially successful brass chamber ensembles in history, with over 130 recordings and hundreds of world premiere performances.
• Chuck Daellenbach (born 1945) has been the only continuous member since the group's founding - over five decades of performing with the same ensemble at its core.
• The group's gold-plated Conn-Selmer instruments featured on this recording are unique in the brass world; Conn-Selmer built them to the ensemble's specifications, combining the Vincent Bach trumpet line with C.G. Conn horn and tuba designs.
• Brandon Ridenour, one of the two trumpeters on this recording, joined Canadian Brass in 2007 at age 19, making him one of the youngest members in the group's history at the time of his appointment.
• Canadian Brass pioneered the concept of the brass quintet as a standalone concert attraction - before their emergence in the 1970s, brass chamber music was largely confined to warm-up acts or educational contexts.
• Achilles Liarmakopoulos, the trombonist on this recording, is a Greek-born musician who studied at the Juilliard School and has been a member of Canadian Brass since 2004.

Track Listing

1. Flight of the Bumblebee (Rimsky-Korsakov) 1:42
2. Killer Tango (Kompanek) 3:58
3. Little Fugue in G Minor (Bach) 3:15
4. Fantasia & Fugue in D Minor (Bach) 2:34
5. Come Again, Sweet Love (Dowland) 1:58
6. Galliard Battaglia (Scheidt) 1:36
7. Golyardes' Grounde (Forsyth) 3:09
8. La Cumparsita (Kompanek) 3:12
9. Turkish Rondo (Mozart) 2:39
10. Brandon's Lament (Ridenour) 5:03
11. Chorale Prelude No. 10 (Brahms) 2:39
12. Canzona Prima a 5 (Gabrieli) 2:20
13. Air on a G String (Bach) 3:29
14. Quintet for Brass (Kamen) 3:55
15. Carnival of Venice (Cable) 3:56
16. Saints Hallelujah (Henderson) 4:22
17. Tuba Tiger Rag (Henderson) 5:15
18. Just a Closer Walk with Thee (Gillis) 3:05

Total Playing Time: 58:07

Label & Publisher

Opening Day Entertainment Group, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. © ℗ 2011 Opening Day Entertainment Group. All titles published by Canadian Brass Publications. Distributed worldwide by Hal Leonard Publishing Corp.

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