KCMETROPOLIS.org
Kansas City's Online Journal of the Performing Arts

With the holiday season comes food, family, shopping, and, if you’re a music critic, dozens of seasonal concerts all over the metro area to know about, to attend, and to write about. How many Christmas concerts is too many Christmas concerts? Well, I don’t have the answer to that question at the moment—ask me in January—but what I can say is that I’m glad I made the commute (along with a thousand others) to Yardley Hall last Friday to hear the Burning River Brass' performance, “Our Kind of Christmas.”

Formed in Cincinnati more than a decade ago, the ensemble consists of eleven talented brass players and a single percussionist. The group offered a program with straight-ahead favorites, unknown gems, and humorous arrangements, while trumpet player Heather Zweifel emceed and provided witty program notes from the stage. Explaining the meaning of the group’s name after a Cincinnati-area river, the Cuyahoga, which was so polluted at one point it would frequently catch on fire, Zweifel quipped that Burning River Brass “had the distinction of being the only ensemble named after an environmental disaster.”

In the first half, “Riu, Riu, Chiu,” a traditional Spanish villancico in an infectious arrangement by Roger Harvey, stood out in the set "Christmas Around the World." Feeling like a peppy bolero complete with tambourine rolls, the piece was over too soon.

The best arrangement from the set, "Carols for the Queen," was William Kirkpatrick’s lesser-known melody to “Away in a Manger” in another Harvey arrangement. This arrangement featured horn players Chris Komer and Mollie Pate in some of the best horn playing I’ve heard anywhere.

Simon Wills arrangement of Franz Grüber’s "Silent Night" opened with a lovely trombone/tuba texture that mimicked Erik Satie’s Gymnopédies No. 1. Heather Zweifel entered with a somber, emotive flugelhorn melody. As the texture thickened, the Gymnopédies gave way to a subtle circus march—which worked perfectly in the context of this arrangement, believe it or not. The Satie-like texture returned at the end with four muted trumpets providing the background for a trombone feature.

The most interesting piece in the second half of the program was arguably the Burning River Nutcracker. Seeking a change of pace from the tradition suite, explained Zweifel, the ensemble commissioned six composers to arrange one movement each of the original Tchaikovsky suite in any style of their choosing. Dean Sorenson’s “Overture” arrangement fell somewhere between Mannheim Steamroller and Miles Davis’ “Sketches of Spain.” The “Pas de deux” arrangement by Dave Morgan re-envisioned that piece as ‘50’s doo-wop, complete with swaying trumpet and trombone players doing finger snaps during the solo tuba opening. Featuring great solo playing from trumpeters Justin Emerich and Zweifel, the piece built nicely, even working in an extended quotation of Dolly Parton’s “I will always love you.” Jim Stephenson’s “Chocolate” arrangement sounded like Bernstein à la West Side Story initially, but later a mariachi element took hold. As idiosyncratic and quirky as this Nutcracker suite sounds, it all really worked; excellent arranging paired very well with excellent playing.

Paul Fergeson’s arrangement of "The Little Drummer Boy" was one of the biggest crowd-pleasers of the evening and prominently featured percussionist Feza Zweifel, who opened with the solemn tom-tom ostinato. The trombones entered in drone fifths, initially in a similarly solemn mood, before taking the piece in a completely different direction as the fifths morphed into a quotation of the opening lick from “The Pink Panther.” It was another effective gag that was not lost on the chuckling audience. The piece cycled through a number of other genres, including a drum solo that channeled surf rock and the big band tune, “Swing, Swing, Swing.”

Burning River Brass closed their program with another tongue-in-cheek piece, a medley entitled "Christmas ‘Toons" in an arrangement by Anthony DiLorenzo. Highlights included an effective arrangement of “Frosty the Snowman” and an arrangement of “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” that featured tuba player Matthew Gaunt sauntering out in front of the ensemble as he played the familiar melody.

It almost felt like Burning River Brass knew I’d heard a dozen versions of "Silent Night" over the last two weeks and that these unique arrangements of holiday favorites were just for me. While that probably wasn’t the case, the program was a nice departure from the traditional—quirky, yet overflowing with incredible quality. 

REVIEW:
Performing Art Series at Johnson County Community College
Burning River Brass
Our Kind of Christmas
Friday, December 16, 2011
Yardley Hall, Carlsen Center, JCCC Campus
12345 College Blvd, Overland Park, KS
For more information, visit http://www.jccc.edu/performing-arts-series/

Top Photo: Burning River Brass (Photo by Roger Mastroianni)

By Topher Levin

Classical Editor and Contributor

Christopher (Topher) Levin is a composer, pianist, music theorist, and music blogger based in Kansas City, MO. His compositions have been performed at music festivals across the US and in Europe. He has spent two summers in Paris, France studying music at the Ecole Normale de Musique through the EAMA program. His trio for clarinet, piano, and percussion is published in the SCI Journal of Scores.

Topher holds degrees from the University of Missouri-Kansas City (M.M.) in music theory and (M.M.) in composition and from James Madison University in Virginia (B.M.) in composition. Primary composition teachers have included John S. Hilliard, Paul Rudy, Zhou Long, James Mobberley, Chen Yi, Claude Baker, Narcis Bonet, Michel Merlet, and João Pedro Oliveira. His piano teachers have included Patricia Brady and Karen Kushner. Topher maintains a piano studio of 22 students.

Having recently completed a Master's thesis on the beautiful complexities of Chinary Ung's trio, Spiral I, Topher turned his writing attention to the more informal blogging medium. He has taken to it quite well, sharing posts on strange and wonderful music and art found across the web with a modest but growing number of blog followers. He looks forward to writing for KCM and sharing with its readers the stories of all the amazing musicians performing in Kansas City.