Canadian Brass

Strike up the band! That’s Canadian Brass, one of the most popular brass ensembles performing today. The group has spent more than four decades bringing the sound and excitement of brass music to audiences around the world with the hallmarks of entertainment, virtuosity, spontaneity and, most of all, fun.

Canadian Brass began in 1970 when founding member Chuck Daellenbach formed a brass quintet that would perform in a chamber music setting. The group began presenting a full range of music, from its trademark Baroque and Dixieland tunes to new compositions and arrangements created especially for them. Masters of concert presentations, Canadian Brass has developed a unique and engaging stage presence and rapport with audiences that allows them to move from formal classical presentations to music served up with a lively dialogue and theatrical effects. The repertoire features brass standards and original arrangements of Renaissance and Baroque masters, marches, holiday favorites, ragtime, Dixieland, Latin, jazz, big band, Broadway and Christian music, as well as popular songs and standards, and the band has created its own musical world by transcribing, arranging and commissioning more than 600 works. In the process, Canadian Brass has brought brass instruments to the forefront and created an ensemble that can span centuries of music in a single concert.

Canadian Brass has received a total of 24 Grammy and Juno nominations and won the German Echo Award for Goldberg Variations. NPR Music noted the appeal of the group: “If you said the Canadian Brass represented the ‘gold standard’ among brass quintets, you’d be right on the mark. Aside from performing on 24K gold-plated instruments, the group, led by avuncular tuba master (and sole original member) Chuck Daellenbach, essentially put the idea of the brass quintet on the map…After four decades, it’s great to see Canadian Brass - practically an institution at this point - still sounding fresh, still attracting young virtuosos, and above all, still having fun with the music.”

The musicians of Canadian Brass include founding member Chuck Daellenbach on tuba, Fabio Brun and Caleb Hudson on trumpet, Achilles Liarmakopoulos on trombone and Jeff Nelson on the horn. They have sold over 2 million albums worldwide, and their album Stars and Stripes: Canadian Brass Salute America spent eight weeks in the top 25 on the Billboard Classical Chart. They have performed in the United States, Canada, Japan, Europe, Australia, the Middle East, the Soviet Union and South America. They were the first brass ensemble from the West to perform in the People’s Republic of China. They have made several appearances there, including one on Hunan TV for the Chinese New Year. They were the first brass group to take the main stage at Carnegie Hall in New York and have often been asked by Canadian officials to play for visiting heads of state as musical ambassadors. They are also noted for their Holiday Concerts at Christmas time.

Education is an important part of the Canadian Brass mission. As the musicians tour the world, they often work with students, young audiences and professional musicians. They recently completed a four-year residency at the University of Toronto and were Chamber Quartet-in-Residence at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California. They also created an innovative brass summer course at the Eastman School of Music and have also worked with El Sistema, the acclaimed global music education program founded in Venezuela.

Canadian Brass enjoys interacting with an international audience with videos, DVDs and cutting-edge technology including multimedia airplay, downloads, YouTube videos and streaming opportunities, as well as digital applications with phones. The appeal is universal for audiences of all ages with an exciting show that makes you tap your feet and sing along while being taken on a musical journey that spans centuries.

“We’ve created ballets, played Carnegie Hall, toured China during its 1977 reopening and performed in front of five prime ministers, but most importantly, we’ve performed for more than 10 million friends, family, and audiences worldwide so far,” says Chuck Daellenbach. “We did all this so we could play Bach.”

This is not your grandmother’s chamber music but bring her along. She’ll love the show, too.