The refulgent echoes of shining brass and noble organ pipes will resound within the walls of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Pittsfield when a group of master musicians join forces on Sunday, February 15 to bring back to life a host of Baroque masterpieces. A program of music for brass and organ will offer works for the combined forces as well as those for brass quartet and organ solos in a program entitled “A Splendid Union.” Headlining the brasses will be a Berkshire trumpet superstar Allan Dean who has assembled a truly splendid group of colleagues to polish the shine on works of early baroque masters from Venice such as Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli, Claudio Merulo, and Giuseppe Guami. Equally eminent is the organ soloist, the formidable Peter Sykes, who has appeared many times in the county at the behest of the Berkshire Bach Society. Maestro Sykes will offer a generous sampling of Bach’s great organ works, including the Passacaglia and Fugue in c minor and the Concerto in a minor after Vivaldi. Together, brass and organ will intone the “Rigaudon” of André Campra and Gabrieli’s “Sonata Pian’e Forte,” among other works.
The concert, which comprises the annual February offering of the Berkshire Bach Society, begins at 4 pm. Admission is $20; $15 for Berkshire Bach Society members and American Organ Guild members, and free for students. Tickets will be available at the door or may be reserved by calling 1-800-838-3006 or by going to www.brownpapertickets.com.
Peter Sykes is one of the most distinguished and versatile keyboard artists performing today. He has appeared in recital at conventions of the American Guild of Organists, the Southeastern Historical Keyboard Society, the Organ Historical Society, American Institute of Organbuilders, International Society of Organbuilders, at the Library of Congress, Boston Early Music Festival, Aston Magna Festival, New England Bach Festival, Portland Chamber Music Festival, New Hampshire Music Festival, and with Ensemble Project Ars Nova, The King’s Noyse, Musica Antiqua Köln, and throughout the United States. He is frequently heard on the nationally syndicated radio program “Pipedreams.” Recent appearances include an all-Bach inaugural recital on a new organ built by Fritz Noack for the Langholtskirkja in Reykjavik, Iceland, Bach’s Goldberg Variations for the Renaissance and Baroque Society in Pittsburgh, Manuel de Falla's Harpsichord Concerto with the Chameleon Arts Ensemble, and the Schumann Piano Quintet on original instruments with the Van Swieten Quartet. In March 2004 he was given the honor of performing the dedication recital on the newly restored 1800 Tannenberg two-manual organ in Old Salem, North Carolina, featured on the nationally broadcast televsion show “CBS Sunday Morning.” With Christa Rakich he created "Tuesdays With Sebastian," an independent two-year benefit concert series in which he and Ms. Rakich performed the entire keyboard works of Johann Sebastian Bach for the organ and harpsichord in thirty-four recitals in five Boston area locations in the 2003-04 and 2004-05 concert seasons. He was the 1993 laureate of the Erwin Bodky Award for excellence in early music performance. In May 2005 he received the Outstanding Alumni award from the New England Conservatory for career achievement since graduation.
Allan Dean, trumpet, is a member of the Summit Brass and the St. Louis Brass Quintet and was a member of the New York Brass Quintet for eighteen years and the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble for ten years. Involved in Baroque and Renaissance music performed on original instruments, Mr. Dean is a founding member of Calliope: A Renaissance Band as well as the New York Cornet and Sacbut Ensemble. Mr. Dean performs and teaches each summer at the Mendez Brass Institute and the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. He has appeared at the Casals and Spoleto (USA) Festivals, the Banff Centre and the Orford Arts Centre in Canada, Musike Belinge in Sweden, and the Puebla Instrumenta in Mexico. He can be heard playing both modern trumpet and early brass on over eighty recordings on major labels including RCA, Columbia, Nonesuch, Pro Arte, CRI, Musical Heritage, and Summit labels. He joined the Yale Faculty in 1988.
Neil Mueller, trumpet, has enjoyed a varied career as a performer and educator. Mueller has played concerti with the Boston Pops, the Berkshire Bach Society Ensemble, the Boston University Symphony and the Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestras and serves as Principal Trumpet with the Fargo Moorhead Symphony Orchestra. An avid chamber musician, he performed, toured and recorded as first trumpet with the Brass Ring quintet. As an educator, Mueller was Associate Professor of Trumpet at North Dakota State University and has taught students at the University of New Hampshire, Boston University’s Tanglewood Institute, the Allegheny Summer Music Festival and the International Music Camp.
Currently principal horn with the Springfield Symphony Orchestra, Laura Klock has served as guest principal horn with orchestras from Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon, as well as in Bogota, Columbia. At age 22, Ms. Klock was appointed to the faculty of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst where she is Professor of Horn, and a member of the Avanti Wind Quintet and the Infinity Brass Quintet. As a chamber musician, Ms. Klock has also performed with the Mohawk Trail Concerts, the Musicorda Festival, the Monadnock Music Festival, Chamber Music Plus in Hartford, the North Country Chamber Players, and the New England Bach Festival in Marlboro, VT. She can be heard in recording on the Open Loop, Crystal, and Gasparo labels.
Trombonist Benjamin Herrington is a founding member of Meridian Arts Ensemble, which has performed over 1000 concerts throughout 16 countries, recorded 10 CDs and, over the past 21 years, received awards and accolades too numerous to mention. As one of New York’s leading trombonists, Mr. Herrington has performed with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, American Brass Quintet, New Jersey Opera, Manhattan Sinfonietta, Sequitur Ensemble, Slee Sinfonietta and many others. Prolific in the field of contemporary chamber music, Mr. Herrington has premiered and recorded dozens of new offerings from composers representing every continent. His most recent collaborations have produced two exciting new works for solo trombone. Trained at Juilliard and New England Conservatory, he now teaches trombone at Manhattan School of Music, Princeton and Columbia Universities and currently performs nightly on Broadway.