Beers and Brass

  hey-o, time for another one of these I suppose. I want to talk about what I see is a strong undercurrent of craft beer lovers and brass musicians. (maybe all musicians??).  Lately I have been seeing a lot of concerts advertised as beer and brass events. Which I love. There are three that recently come to mind just in the past few months.

1. Orchestra Iowa brass quintet plays two shows a year at the Lions Bridge Brewery where they play mostly entertaining transcriptions for a high energy crowd. I tried to find a fun video I had seen recently of the whole bar singing along with the quintet. It was cool.

2. The low brass section in Des Moines played a pre-concert event in January called Brahms and Beer before they joined their colleagues on stage to play Bruckner's fourth symphony.

3. Gaudete Brass Quintet recently did a recital that was sponsored by a Brew company where they played their new music repertoire.

4. Temperance Brass (a brass quintet in Chicago) is also doing an upcoming concert at Empirical Brewery May 14th. ( I know I said three, I set the bar low and then over deliver.)

To me this is heaven. What more could one want than to be among the brass loving public, witnessing brass music performance, while drinking a beer???

But seriously, I think the reason this works so well for me, brass players, and maybe my generation, is that is takes some of the stuffiness out of classical music scene. I think a lot of people get turned of by a lot of the concerts we present, because we are asking too much out of them.

Asking someone who is not an avid listener of classical music, to sit still, not talk, and clap only when appropriate for two hours can be a daunting task to the uninitiated, and even for those of us that know the drill. Adding beer to the mix, I think not only adds something loved and familiar, but also can form a connection between the musicians and the audience. Plus it'll get you where you want to go regardless of the performing act!

Do string players put on beer centric concerts? I don't seem to see as much of these. I bet we'll see more string players jumping on this band wagon. Peace everyone!