bristol brass consort

This post 28th December 2011. Last post 23rd December 2010. Even by Bristol Brass standards that’s a somewhat longish gap. Did nothing happen last year? Well it was certainly quieter than 2010, our 25th birthday year, and we did a few less gigs this year than last but on the whole we’ve been quietly busy as our concert diary shows. I’ve just been to lazy to write about any of them. Still the year ended with a sort of bang as I had a stroke at the beginning of November. Luckily, I’ve recovered enough to still perform admin tasks such as this and help with putting on concerts (developing program’s, writing program notes etc.) but have not attempted serious trumpet playing yet. (Please put cheap jokes about “did I ever” into the comments box). So thanks to all the players who stepped in at short notice to cover 2nd trumpet in all our quintet concerts in November and December. Unfortunately I’ve no excuse now to leave it for over a year to the next post.

Bristol Brass Consort would like to say a big thank you the very generous customers of The Merchants Arms in Hotwells for contributing over £213 to the British Heart Foundation last night. All we had to do was turn up and have a good time playing Carols & drink some excellent Bath Ales beer. Thanks also to the Merchants Arms, our favourite little boozer, for facilitating the event… Continue reading

Due to the atrocious weather conditions our Carol services in Weston Super Mare today (20th) and tomorrow (21st) have been cancelled, as as our concert at Arnos Vale cemetery chapel tomorrow evening. We’re still hoping that our festivity gig at the Merchants Arms will go ahead on Wednesday (22nd) evening. A slightly downbeat ending to our generally very successful 25th birthday year… Continue reading

Well, it’s nearly here, our big, big 25th birthday concert. Details can be found on this website of course, or on the St. George’s, Bristol diary. We’re all practising hard (honest) for what should be a spectacular program. We’re really pleased to be giving the premiere of a new piece specially written for this concert by Liz Lane, a founder member of the Consort. Three members of… Continue reading

Just to point out that our concert on 15th May at Trinity Henleaze United Reform Church has been cancelled. Wish I hadn’t turned down that gig with the Berlin Phil. now… Continue reading

As you may have see from our event diary or Facebook  page, or even the post from 31st January (which I’d completely forgotten I’d written until I started writing this), we are off to Paris in March for a couple of joint concerts  arranged by KA Brass of Paris. This post is just to point you to their website and to thank… Continue reading

Craig Morris took over from the legendary Adolph “Bud” Herseth as principal trumpet of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 2001.  Bud Herseth had been principal trumpet since 1948 (53 years !!) so this was a somewhat hard act to follow. This is a pointer to his blog livmusic.com which is a fascinating glimpse into the working life of a top musician. It contains a host of invaluable information… Continue reading

This is the first post in the newly designed Wordpress based web site. Heaven knows how long it will stay like this, Wordpress provides a constant temptation to fiddle with the site whilst it crashes and burns around you. So the design is prety much in place but rough edges have to smoothed over and a lot of the content needs attention. Any glaring errors/problems/nastiness then just leave a comment… Continue reading | 1 Comment

Well, the concert in Cheddar on the 22nd of January went quite well with plenty of positive feedback. We were very pleased to be able to share part of the concert with the Cheddar Valley Music Club Senior Brass Ensemble, a very talented bunch of lads who are a credit to Anne Higgs of the Somerset Music Service who runs and directs the group. Next up for us is a… Continue reading

Well this is the first post of our 25th Birthday year. It’s also the first post to appear only on our new(ish) worpress based blog. There is still a lot of stuff to do and the old static html/css site is still up but over the next few weeks it will all be transferred here. Hopefully. And before the 50th birthday. Oh, and here’s a variant of our new logo… Continue reading