The Original Stereo with Humboldt Bay Brass

The Humboldt Bay Brass Band spring concert begins big—and gets bigger.

”This concert will begin with a short fanfare played by Baroque Trumpets von Humboldt,” said Gil Cline, HSU Music professor and director of the event. “These are the eight-foot natural trumpets—that is, they don’t have valves. They’re from the age of Bach. We also have a pair of rare hand-made Baroque timpani on loan from the Jefferson Baroque Orchestra of Ashland, Oregon.”

That fanfare introduces the first half of the concert, which features the sounds of Venetian Brass ofthe late Renaissance and early Baroque. “This is always popular with audiences,” Cline says. “The brass group is split into two choirs, placed a distance apart. The result is the original left/right stereo effect, as the two choirs play—sometimes together, sometimes in echo of each other.”

Added to the brass are pipe organ and contrabass, “just as in the time of Giovanni Gabrieli and San Marco Cathedral in Venice.” The music includes the beautiful “Let Nothing Ever Grieve Thee” by Brahms, and ends with the rollicking “Emperor's Fanfare” by Padre Antonio Soler. On this work two of the trumpeters switch to small, and rarely heard, piccolo trumpets.

The second half of the concert is all brass band by the full Humboldt Bay ensemble. Once again, it starts with a fanfare: “Towermusic” by Jean Francois Michel is in the old tradition of playing brass music from civic towers. Following is “Southdown March,” made famous by the brass bands of the international Salvation Army.

The band plays on: “The Conquerors,” a work suggesting heroes and adventures of olde England by Eric Ball, “An Irish Interlude” and the popular “Procession of the Nobles,” by Nicoli Rimsky-Korsakov, with an arrangement by band member Mike Shepherd, of Brookings, Oregon. Closing the concertis “Finlandia” by Jean Sibelius.

Following well-received concerts over the past four years, the recording of a full-length audio CD last year, and shared concerts with bands from Eureka, Scotia, and McKinleyville, the Humboldt Bay Band’s Spring concert balances the full band with smaller ensembles. The Humboldt Bay Band itself is perhaps the only group of its type north of the Bay Area. Members include HSU students and local community musicians, plus musicians from as far away as Ferndale and southern Oregon-- and for the present concert, an exchange student from Norway.

The concert begins at 8 PM on Saturday, April 7 in the Fulkerson Recital Hall on the HSU campus in Arcata. Tickets $6 general, $2 student/seniors, free to HSU students with ID, from HSU Ticket Office (826-3928) or at the door. Produced by HSU Department of Music, Gil Cline conducting.

Media: Arcata Eye.