Jake's Brass Rep!

      Matthew Barker is currently the 4th/utility trumpet with the Baltimore Symphony, as position which he's held since the 2016-2017 season. Like many other musicians, he found himself with very little to do once his orchestra closed its doors at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020. The following video is a trumpet chamber piece he wrote and recorded himself, while at home during the global lockdown. Pay attention to the art style and intentional recording style being used here. A trend that began to emerge in peoples content around this time was experimental/interesting camera work, to try to be unique from the pack and get eye on their work. A cursory understanding of how to work a camera soon became a common expectation around people who recorded themselves for online content. 

      Some organizations opted in to this trend, just as the Boston Symphony did, but opted to demonstrate more practical music, such as this excerpt from Mahler's second symphony. This video shows the power of digital music making, as all of the musicians in the video are recording themselves at home, in totally different spaces. Also, seeing as they are not sound engineers, but instead orchestral musicians, they likely know very little about proper microphone placement or balance. This would require someone with a good knowledge of mixing music to balance, eventually producing a solid finished product.      All of this to say, that limits of what people thought to be possible using remote recording at this time were constantly being challenged, leading to some interesting projects such as the one below. 

      The impact that the Covid-19 pandemic had on the musical world was deep and impactful. It stopped the world to a halt and demanded that musicians be flexible and find new ways to create and share their product with patrons. Since live performing was a far cry away from meeting with social distancing standards, a new solution had to be formulated. This began a trend of people creating their own home recordings, either collaborating with others via digital file sharing, or creating their own projects.      Below is an arrangement of Bugler's Holiday, and piece written originally for 3 trumpets and orchestra by composer Leroy Anderson. It has been arranged here for 4 trumpets and is being played by the trumpet section of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The piece  is a lively and iconic trumpet trio composed by American composer Leroy Anderson in 1954. Known for his light orchestral pieces, Anderson had a talent for blending classical precision with ...

 Brass Chamber Transcriptions     The combined forces of the Canadian Brass, Boston Symphony brass, and New York Philharmonic brass come together on this recording to play an arrangement of Beethovens 5th symphony. This piece would have never originally been conceived for brass, but this arrangement lets us see what it would be like in a brass only setting.      Polovtsian Dances is a piece written by Russian Big 5 composer Alexander Borodin. It is masterfully arranged here, and played by the brass players of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. This piece takes advantage of the more subtle and lyrical capabilities of the brass family.      Moving into our first brass quintet arrangement, we have The Canadian Brass playing Bach's very famous Toccata and Fugue in D minor. The piece was arranged by Fred Mills, long time trumpeter of the Canadian Brass. This piece requires good ensemble communication and musical cohesiveness to pull off, and is we...