SKU: P2.60044

For many years I have coached brass quintets at the USC Thornton School of Music. One of the outstanding young quintets was the Valente Brass: Yurie Yoshida, and Jessica Cruz, Trumpets; Erika Miras, Horn; Jonathan Sie, Trombone; and Jake Kraft, Bass Trombone. They kept urging me to write a quintet for them and thus was born HoopLA. This short (4:30 min) one movement piece was premiered by them at the Live at Basset Hall 8 concert, April 13, 2014. It was during this same time that I was writing two other works, Intrepideedoodah and Pocket Change. In all three I used 6/4 meter as the main rhythmic structure. I call it my 6/4 period. That meter translates easily into 12/8 and many other groupings of 2s, 3s, 4,s and 6s--the glories of hemiola abound. A unison intro leads to a Latin set-up in the trumpets and a tricky groove in the trombones. The horn has a haunting melody over that. A middle waltz section follows with imitative solos in the trumpets and a series of duets between the all of the players--giving the impression of odd meters. The main theme returns with a rousing ending. The brass quintet members named the piece HoopLA and, as the title suggests, it's a lot of fun in Los Angeles. -Jim Self.

SKU: ST.Y224

ISBN 9790220221552.

Scenes from Welsh life and landscape are a frequent source of inspiration for the music of Rhian Samuel, and, in Dovey Junction, the joyful atmosphere of families en route to the Welsh seaside via the little west-coast railway line is the cue for a crackling scherzo for brass quintet.

A snappy rondo theme insists on dressing up in a different texture each time it returns. In between, pithy staccato phrases for trumpets are the setting for more cantabile figures from horn and trombone, and a brief and bluesy episode for muted solo trumpet suggests lazy days on the beach, or grown-up nostalgia for holidays long past. But the energy and sense of expectation remain unstoppable from the first bar to the last, and all five instruments sweep the music into a furious coda that ends the work in riotous high spirits.

Dovey Junction was written for performance by Borealis Brass (Alaska) at the UNESCO World Forum on Music, Los Angeles, USA in October 20005, at the invitation of the Fondazione Adkins Chiti: Donne in Musica, (Rome).