The San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) is pleased to announce a new collaboration project with the National Brass Ensemble (NBE), which will include a live concert, recording event, and National Brass Ensemble Summer Academy for students. NBE draws from the finest brass and percussion players in major orchestras across the country and includes several SFCM faculty members.
“We are thrilled to sponsor and host the National Brass Ensemble for this spectacular project and recording. This will be a transformative educational and artistic experience that promises to inspire all of us,” said SFCM President David H. Stull, the executive director of NBE who helped envision the ensemble in 2011 with Michael Sachs, NBE’s artistic director and principal trumpet at the Cleveland Orchestra.
On the night of Monday June 20, 2022 the National Brass Ensemble will perform at Davies Symphony Hall, home to the San Francisco Symphony, “I am so delighted that after a seven year break we were able to again find that needle in a haystack moment when we can gather together the National Brass Ensemble! We'll be performing and recording new works written especially for us by Aaron Jay Kernis, Jonathan Bingham, and Arturo Sandoval, and a new Richard Wagner- Ring compilation arrangement done by our own Timothy Higgins [Principal Trombone, San Francisco Symphony],” said Sachs. “In addition to these performed works, this time we will be interacting with a group of brass, percussion, and timpani students especially chosen through auditions to participate in a comprehensive menu of educational events including panel discussions, lectures, intimate masterclass settings, instrument specific subject matter classes, as well as interactive readings of chamber music, music of Giovanni Gabrieli, and standard orchestral repertoire,” Sachs added.
Music Director of San Francisco Opera Eun Sun Kim and Music Director of San Francisco Symphony Esa-Pekka Salonen will conduct the National Brass Ensemble. Bingham’s commission was awarded as part of SFCM and the S.F. Symphony’s initial Emerging Black Composers Project in 2021. Kernis, a Pulitzer Prize and Grammy Award-winner, is an SFCM alum and Higgins teaches on its faculty.
The National Brass Ensemble Summer Academy will be from June 13-20, 2022 and is part of a lineup of summer offerings at the Conservatory to include overnight camps in guitar, voice and technology and applied composition (more details forthcoming). During the week-long academy, students will work with principal brass and percussion players from the top major orchestras across the country in masterclasses, side-by-side brass ensemble and orchestral section readings, interactive chamber music sessions, and workshops delving into audition preparation, performance psychology, and arranging for brass ensemble, among other topics. Participants will have the exclusive opportunity to observe the National Brass Ensemble in rehearsal and recording sessions at Skywalker Studios, as well as attend the culminating National Brass Ensemble performance at Davies Symphony Hall.
“For any aspiring orchestral brass, percussion, or timpani player I cannot imagine a more inspiring and once in a lifetime opportunity to be in an intimate environment like this with the top players in the business!” Sachs added about the program.
The collaboration was largely inspired by the Grammy® Award-winning 1968 recording, The Antiphonal Music of Gabrieli, which featured the brass ensembles of the Chicago Symphony and the Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras.
How to apply: Admission is by audition, this program is intended for serious brass and percussion musicians including trumpet, french horn, trombone, tuba, percussion, and timpani players aged 16-25. Applications are now open and must be submitted by March 15, 2022.
Full details, including faculty listings and admissions requirements, can be found at https://sfcm.edu/summer-programs.