Buzz Words

History, Fireworks and the last week

2008-08-03T19:05:00.002-05:00

Well, it's the last week of the festival already - the summer sure has flown by! This week we're taking it easy doing some memorizing for KC, playing some new rep, playing intermission call-back on Friday and Saturday, visiting some waterfalls, and probably doing some tubing down one of the local rivers.

Our outdoor performance for Norfolk's 250th anniversary was a great success - the audience enjoyed the large variety of music we provided. Plus it was a beautiful day! There was a great fireworks show afterwards as well.

Other stuff this week: updating the website, I've got some more arrangements to finish, we'll be finalizing our children's concert info for the website, among other things.

Stay tuned! :-)

CSBQ Participates in History!

2008-07-30T08:41:00.002-05:00

Hey everybody (hey, Dr Nick!)-

This Friday the CSBQ will be performing for a very special event- the 250th anniversary of the town of Norfolk, CT! It's an honor to be asked to help celebrate this momentous occasion. We'll be running down the tunes for our Kansas City show- some Praetorious, Jeffery Hurles' Delta, Tim's great Edgar Meyer arrangement, some Piazzolla, and lots more fun stuff.

Be sure to stick around for the puppet show afterward.

More from the CT

2008-07-29T20:35:00.004-05:00

Hey,

Tim once again.

We just nailed down our Midwest Arts Showcase repertoire. This is a performance on September 18th in Kansas City for presenters, booking folks and other people who might want to throw us a bone. We're excited.

The run down:

1. Praetorious: Courante #2

2. Herles: Delta

3. Edgar Meyer: Sliding Down

4. Piazzolla: Summer in Buenos Aires Tango

5. Waller: Ain't Misbehavin'

6. Teixidor: Amparito Roca

Word. Back to memorizing. :-) More soon!

Update from quintet-land

2008-07-26T10:54:00.002-05:00

Hi everyone,

Tim here again. Thanks for keeping yourselves posted with the going's-on of the CSBQ with our little blog here!

Last Sunday we played an outdoor gig at a 55+ vacation community in the middle of CT. Except for the on-and-off rain and the wind blowing our music stands over, the concert was a success and the audience really liked it. Even got some requests for CD's...when we get back to Minneapolis a CD is on its way.

Last week was a fairly light week...our coach - Allan Dean - and the 5 of us were in and out of Norfolk, so we mainly talked repertoire, business, and more kiddie show ideas.

I just finished an arrangement of The Muppets' "Manamana" for our K-4 educational show. We think it'll be a big hit with the little kids. If you know the tune (and if you don't, YouTube it!), it's got the tuba as "Manamana", the 2 trumpets and trombone as the "Do do do do do" folks, and me on percussion...and it's got lots of choreography, of course! Should be fun.

Thursday and Friday we went down into New York City to see friends and hang in Manhattan. Nice to get away for a couple days!

That's about all from quintet-land. We have a show tomorrow for an arts council up in Monterrey, MA. Tunes on the show: Bankersangerlieder, Mauer 3 Pieces, Ewazen Colchester Fantasy, Michael Kamen Quintet, Toreador song, 3 tunes from West Side Story, Ain't Misbehavin', and others. Should be fun (and it's not outside, so no wind to contend with). :-)

More soon!

Tim

Hi from the horn player

2008-07-15T14:52:00.002-05:00

Hey everyone, it's Tim, hornist for The CSBQ. First blog post here...just saying a big hello to our web-friends out there keeping tabs on us. Rehearsals are going well, and we're getting more and more efficient. Having triples every day: 10-12, 4-6, and 7-9. Great stuff.

Yesterday we read my arrangement of Edgar Meyer's "Sliding Down" (on his Uncommon Ritual CD), which got a really good read from the group, went really well, and will probably become a piece we'll do at our Kansas City showcase in September. We hope to do more fresh arrangements like this. Just finished my rockin' Spinal Tap medley for the quintet (with drum set of course! And hopefully a mini-Stonehenge). Will read that tomorrow.

Got a gig coming up on Sunday out here in CT, so we gotta hit some rehearsal again. Today it's my arrangement of a Piazzolla tango, Ewazen's Colchester Fantasy and Michael Kamen's Quintet. More soon!

thoughts from trombone-land

2008-07-03T12:44:00.005-05:00

As a service to you, our faithful fans, we have decided to set up a group blog to give a little more insight into our personalities, projects, and ideas. It's a good exercise for us to keep track of our goals and aspirations. It will also give you guys a chance to give us feedback and comments easily.

So, I'm Lauren, I'm the trombonist...that should probably tell you a lot right there. Right now I'm writing this from the gorgeous festival campus that hosts the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival every summer. We're here for six weeks of intense rehearsals, coachings, and performances. It's been awesome so far- lots of greenery, our own big practice space, great accommodations, and then there's the food. It'd almost be better if the food sucked, because then we wouldn't have to eat so much of it. And OMG lemon bars. Someone must have discovered a list of things I'm defenseless against, because lemon bars at at the top of that list.

Anyway, I think we're all pretty content here. We're starting to buckle down in our rehearsals and learn our music, and it's great to have Sean with us full-time from here on out. Some pieces on our stands right now include Tim's great arrangement of Verano Porteno (Buenos Aires Summer) from Piazzolla's suite of season-flavored works, a Bach Prelude and Fugue that Sean transcribed, some Corelli, some Ellington, a fair splattering of Bernstein, and lots and lots of original arrangements to come. Not much of an arranger myself, but I've got a few ideas, including 'Hell' of Squirrel Nut Zippers fame, as well as some great 70s classics. I guess you can see where my interests lay.

Of course, no brass quintet summer would be complete without its share of fart jokes, completely and wildly inappropriate comments, and large quantities of malted beverage, but I'll leave all of that up to your imagination.