The Lone Star Brass quintet will return for its first chamber concert of the 2022-23 season with a holiday-themed performance.
The concert, also titled “Basin Brass Christmas Bonanza!” will take place at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 20 at the Rea-Greathouse Recital Hall at the Wagner Noël Performing Arts Center.
The Lone Star Brass members are a part of the West Texas Symphony.
The quintet consists of Eric Baker on trumpet, Ben Fairfield also on trumpet, Scott Millichamp on horn, Stewart Rhodes on trombone and Arturo Galvan on tuba.
Other ensembles that have performed so far this season include the Permian Basin String Quartet and the West Texas Winds.
The Lone Star Brass quintet usually performs one of its concerts at this time of the year.
Next week’s performance will include members from other symphonies around the area including Lubbock, Amarillo and San Angelo.
“Typically, in December, the Lone Star Brass Quintet will play a holiday show, just the five of us,” Fairfield said. “This year, we’ve invited the rest of the brass section from the West Texas Symphony and some of our friends from the Amarillo and Lubbock Symphony and San Angelo Symphony so we’re putting together a full-orchestral brass section with some percussion as well.”
The evening will be filled with holiday tunes since it’s close to the Christmas season.
“We’ve got some really great arrangements from pretty big names in the brass world,” Fairfield said. “There’s something in this show for everybody. We’re going to open with some standard Christmas carols like ‘Joy to the World’ and ‘Hark! The Harold Angels Sing,’ two pieces that everybody would recognize. We’ll also play a few songs arranged by Anthony DiLorenzo, who’s a fantastic trumpet player himself and conductor. I think he lives in the Pacific Northwest now. But he’s been all over. Some of the pieces of his that we’re going to do, were actually arranged for the New York Philharmonic brass at one of their holiday concerts several years ago.”
Of course, there will still be plenty of the Christmas classics that people will recognize right away.
“We’re also going to do a compilation of some of those famous holiday specials like How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. That’s going to end our show.”
The concert will include portions where the Lone Star Brass performs just as a quintet. Other parts of the show will include members from other symphonies.
“The Lone Star Brass Quintet is going to play some quintet pieces as well but most of the show is going to be four trumpets, four trombones, four horns, a tuba and some French horns,” Fairfield said.
Fairfield is excited about this collaboration.
“It’s great,” Fairfield said. “Like I said, when you see the larger, full time groups do this, you can see how much fun the performers have and we’re not isolated. We know these people. They’re friends. It’s a chance for us to get together with some friends and make some music. That’s one of the best things that we get to do.”
He got the idea from some of the larger symphonies around the country including the Dallas Symphony, New York and Chicago symphonies.
“I’ve been to some of those shows before and thought this is a fun thing that audiences really love,” Fairfield said. “The performers really like getting together to perform that music so I figured why don’t we bring that here. So that’s what we’re going to start to do.”
December is usually a busy time of the year for everyone and that especially includes members of the West Texas Symphony.
Earlier this month, the West Texas Syphony had its Sounds of the Season Holiday Pops Concert. A week later, they were busy accompanying the Midland Ballet Company it its performance of “The Nutcracker.”
“There’s a lot going on with the West Texas Symphony right now, which is great because December is a great time to be a musician,” Fairfield said. “Yes it’s busy but we get to do a lot of really neat things.”
Fairfield reflected on this current season at the West Texas Symphony which began in September under its new name.
“We all agree that it’s been great so far,” Fairfield said. “We’ve done some really good repertoire. We started the season with Mahler’s First Symphony which was a great way to kickoff and unveil the new name. We had a couple of the pops concerts. We played with Asleep at the Wheel in October and another masterworks in November. We’ve enjoyed introducing this new name with some great work and we’re going to continue doing that in the spring. We have some Sibelius coming up and Brad Leali who is a saxophone player who now teaches at University of North Texas. He’s going to do a great pops concert in March. We’re going to do the movie Back to the Future at the end of the season in May. We’ve done some great work and we’re looking forward to doing some more.”
Fairfield is hopeful that everyone can make it to the concert.
“I really hope that people can come out to this show and get excited for it,” Fairfield said. “It’s a chance for everybody to catch their breath during Christmas week. If you want roughly an hour-and-a-half to listen to Christmas music and watch us have fun, then come out and we can continue this tradition each year.”
If you go
- What: Basin Brass Christmas Bonanza!
- Where: Rea-Greathouse Recital Hall at the WNPAC.
- When: 7:30 p.m. Dec. 20.
- Where to purchase tickets: tinyurl.com/yzv72kvh
