Entry #5 Khirkiyaan and Jaipur

 Hello, for my post today I am taking a piece from a classmate's blog. Matthew Dulas gave a presentation today in class about Sacred Brass Music, the piece he shared was Khirkiyaan by Reena Esmail. It's translation from Hindi to English is Windows. Reena Esmail said about the piece 

"So much of my work with brass instruments has come into being because of incredible and intrepid brass players who have shown me new windows into my own music. Each movement is a transformation of another piece of mine for another instrumentation, reimagined for brass quintet."

This piece is unique, not only because of it's name, but because of the complex rhythms. It constantly switches between mixed meter time signatures, requiring the performer to have a good sense of time and a strong ability to subdivide. It also has many Indian based tonalities, from the note bends to the harmonic mixtures between the different voices. 

Here is a recording, I hope you enjoy it!

Because this piece is inspired on Indian Culture, I picked a game today that is named after a city in India. Jaipur. Jaipur is a two player game that is incredibly fun. My wife and I love playing this game. You are a trader and you collect cards from the center of the game center, then when you have at least a pair of matching symbols you can exchange the cards in for a matching token. There are 7 different styles of tokens and within each token there is different point values, so the first person to take each token gets a higher one than the next person. This game requires you to not only save cards so that you can get more tokens, but to be quick so that you can get the first of each one! 

I hope you enjoy both the recording and the game today. Try playing this game and let me know what you think, put on the recording of Khirkiyaan in the background, or just put it on anyway!! 

Entry #4 Alyabiev & Russia

Hello, today in class we are listening to a piece by Alexander Alyabiev called Quintet in Eb. This piece is for standard Brass quintet. One interesting fact about the piece is that it is one of the first works composed for Brass Quintet, dating back to 1847. The composer Alyabiev is Russian and served in the Russian army during the napoleonic wars from 1812-1823 at a very young age, so he didn't compose this piece till he was much older at age 61. 

You can listen along here!!

I really enjoy this piece. I love the triplets in the first trumpet and how the melodic lines contrast each other throughout the ensemble. It has a very "old" sound, but for a musician living in the 21st century it is refreshing and feels like playing the works of Mozart or Brahms, but in Brass Quintet. 

For todays game I was thinking about the composer and his tie to Russia, I picked a game that although it is different timelines, it is the same geographical location. Russia and Soviet Russia. I picked Axis and Allies. It is a World War II game game where you pick between being on either the Axis which contains Germany, Soviet Union (Russia) and Japan, or you can be the Allies that consist of USA and UK. Each turn you can build either soldiers, tanks, planes or ships and you then move across the world map and attack other cities until you have world domination. It is a very long game, that takes multiple hours, and can be anywhere from 2 to 5 players. If you love history and war, you would love this game. While you play this game or just read the rules and find it too overwhelming, turn on Alexander Alyabiev's Quintet in Eb, I know you will enjoy it. 

Entry #3 Traveler

Hello! For this post I wanted to focus on music that involves traveling or seeing the beauty of nature. I found five different brass pieces from small ensembles to full size bands, each with a unique story to tell, and a fun game at the end that also involves traveling!

I posted all of the pieces on this youtube playlist if you would like to follow along!

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMxQfbBamG51QYnsDcj6XkLoFnLjxmVJ6

First up is Pastorale by Eric Ewazen. This piece is written for Trumpet, Bass Trombone and Piano. I think it is absolutely beautiful, I played this on a recital with my wife and it has been one of my favorite pieces since then. Eric Ewazen has written a lot of music for a lot of instruments, this was originally the second movement in a piece he wrote for French Horn, Flute and Piano, but later he took it out of the complete work and re constructed it for Brass! 

Pastorale (2002)

Eric Ewazen (1954-present)

Ingrid Rebostock, Yossi Itskovich and Eric Ewazen (2015)

The next piece is Five Landscapes for Brass Quintet by Jeffery Cortazzo. This recording is by The U.S. Army Brass Quintet. The five movements are, The Summit, The Desert, Forest Meadow, The Gap and City Streets. Each one to depict a differnt landscape that you might come across on your travels. 

Five Landscapes (1993)

Jeffery Cortazzo (1963-present)

U.S. Army Brass Quintet (2014)

The next piece is Dürrenhorn Passage by Kevin McKee. Kevin McKee is very well known in the trumpet world and this piece demonstrates his ability. This piece is for a trumpet sextet. As stated on his website, this piece depicts a flight through an epic alpine landscape. Dürrenhorn is a summit in the Pennine Alps in Switzerland. This piece was premiered at the International Trumpet Guild. 

Dürrenhorn Passage (2009)

Kevin McKee (1980-present)

Army Band Trumpet Ensemble (2014)

The next piece on my list is by a Composer named Gina Gillie, this work is called Mountain Ascent. This was written for the Carolina Trombone Project, and it has four movement. They are, In the distance,  Alpine Meadows, Ice Fields and Summit. This piece is for eight trombones. 

Mountain Ascent (2020)

Gina Gillie (1981)

Carolina Trombone Project Members (2023)

Finally for my last piece, instead of basing the piece off the landscape, I based the ensemble off of a non American/European country. This last ensemble is the Brisbane Excelsior Band from Queensland Australia. The piece is called O R B. This is a Brass Band full of Trumpet/Cornets, Trombones, Euphonium/Baritones, Tubas and Percussion. 

O.R.B. (1916)

Charles Anderson (1880-1946)

Brisbane Excelsior Band (2018)

For the game I chose Ticket to Ride. This game is a game of trains! Each person has 40-50 trains (little plastic ones) and your goal is to place them down on the game board. How you do that is by destinations. For example if you wanted to go from New York to Los Angeles, you could place trains along that train route, then you just keep putting trains down on your turn and getting the most points from biggest destinations. There are so many different versions to this game, each one at a different location. Europe, Germany, Scandinavia, Switzerland, Asia, America, Wild West, India, Africa, Netherlands, UK, France,  Poland, Japan, Italy and a version that covers the whole world. 

I hope you enjoy listening to this music, and can imagine traveling to each of these locations, then maybe play one of the ticket to ride games and learn even more about that exciting new place!