News & Events

4th International HBS Symposium - July 10-14, 2024 in New York City

Innovations in Brass: Design, Manufacturing, Performance, Repertoire, Teaching
 

Plans are well underway for our July Symposium in New York City!

In addition to a varied program with over 40 presentations, there will be a private tour of the Musical Instruments Collection, a set of performances at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, concerts, and playing sessions. Watch this space for updates and further details!

We are very pleased to announce that Sabine Klaus will present the first Keynote Address at our July 2024 Symposium. In honor of the 100 th anniversary of Vincent Bach beginning his New York manufacturing venture, she will present “Myths and Facts about the Birth of the Modern Trumpet”. Sabine is Professor Emerita at the University of South Dakota, having served from 2000–2023 as the Joe R. and Joella F. Utley Curator of Brass Instruments at the National Music Museum, University of South Dakota. She is the author of the five-volume book series Trumpets and Other High Brass: A History Inspired by the Joe R. and Joella F. Utley Collection, published by the National Music Museum (completion expected in 2024).

Registration is now open!

HBS Supports 2024 North American Baroque Trumpet Competition and Conference

The HBS is proud to announce that it will be supporting the second North American Baroque Trumpet Competition and Conference. This event will be hosted at Colorado State University, in Fort Collins, Colorado, on April 6th and 7th by Stanley Curtis, trumpet professor at CSU and current President of the HBS. The public event consists of concerts, master classes, paper presentations, and a competition—all related to the baroque trumpet. Additional sponsors include Brass for Beginners, Maller Brass, and the CSU ITG Student Chapter

Please join us in celebrating and recognizing outstanding young solo and ensemble baroque trumpets, renowned guest artists, and though-provoking researchers right next to the Rocky Mountains! 

North American Baroque Trumpet Competition and Conference

 

 

 

HBS's New General Manager, Adam Dillon

After an extensive search process, the HBS Executive Committee has hired a General Manager, Adam Dillon. 

Adam Dillon is a specialist in historical trombones and chamber music, and he is the managing director of Forgotten Clefs, Renaissance Wind Ensemble. Adam is also the Production and Events Assistant at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University. In January 2018 Adam was featured as an emerging professional in Early Music America’s EMagazine's Early to Rise series. He has given papers on Renaissance topics at the International Medieval Renaissance Conference in Uppsala, Sweden and Munich, Germany. Passionate about children's outreach and education programs, Adam has taught Renaissance dance, music, and history through Shakespeare's Ear and Shawms and Stories to elementary school students in south/central Indiana and North Carolina. Adam lives in Montréal, QC while pursuing a DMus at McGill University. He has also studied at Indiana University and the University of North Texas. Science fiction books, political podcasts, and a love of public transit take up Adam’s extra-musical spare time.
 

Congratulations and welcome to Adam! 

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Holger Eichhorn (1942-2023)

Holger Eichhorn, pioneering cornettist, musicologist, polemicist, and editor, has left us. I first met Holger in 1975, when, having heard news of a new cornetto player in Basel, he invited me to come to Berlin to meet him. I took a night train, which Holger (and his younger brother Klaus) met at the station. He accompanied me to his place and then listened intently as I, eyes barely open, warmed up on my Monk resin cornetto. I still remember vividly his first words, “Hmm… nice, but still rather trumpetlike.” With that visit I came to know Holger’s passion for the cornetto, his intensity, his unwillingness to compromise on anything, his immense knowledge and his propensity to play on instruments that had nothing to do, that I could discern, with historical cornetti. As I got to know him better over the next couple of decades, all of those impressions only deepened - and also my perplexity and my respect. 

Historic Brass Society Board Member Honored with International Composition Award

            Dr. Joanna Hersey, longtime HBS member and the organization’s Secretary, was honored at the International Tuba Euphonium Conference held May 29th-July 3rd, held at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona. The International Tuba Euphonium Association (ITEA) celebrated the organization's 50th anniversary with a week of concerts, student competitions, masterclasses, and historical presentations. Participants gathered from across the world, joined by local educators, students, community members, and a variety of exhibitors showcasing instrument design and new music.

Jeremy West named 2023 Christopher Monk Award winner

Congratulations to the 2023 Christopher Monk Award recipient, Jeremy West!

West is an evangelist for the cornett, the often-overlooked wind instrument which was held in the highest possible regard during the 16th and 17th centuries. He continues to play a lead role in re-establishing this instrument as a recognized and accepted virtuoso and ensemble instrument and now has thirty-five years of top class playing and recording experience with many of Europe's leading renaissance and early baroque ensembles.

Nussbaum's Renaissance instruments for sale

Founder and former president of the Historic Brass Society, Jeff Nussbaum, is selling his collection of Renaissance wind instruments. They are being sold by the Von Huene Workshop. Included for sale are: 

  1. Silverstein cornetto in A
  2. Silverstein cornetto dirritto in A
  3. Bob Marvin mute cornett in A circa 1967
  4. Serge Delams muste cornetto in G
  5. Silverstein Renaissance soprano and alto recorders
  6. Kobliczek recorder in G
  7. Hopf bass Renaissance recorder
  8. Korber soprano and alto crumhorn

For those interested, please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Additionally, a wide selection of brass instruments from the collection are being sold by Chris Belluscio. Those interested may contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Trombone Champ video game makes a splash

Read about a fun new video game, "Trombone Champ," that is making headlines lately. Read the full article here

Romantic Brass in Context Symposium set for April, 2023

Romantic Brass in Context: 19th-Century Brass Instruments in Military, Church, Chamber, Opera, and Orchestra, the Sixth International Romantic Brass Symposium is set for  April 20-22, 2023 in Bern, Switzerland, held by Hochschule der Künste Bern in collaboration with the Historic Brass Society.

The well-established Romantic Brass Symposia present current research on brass instruments, concentrating on music of the long 19th century (1789–1914). After conferences on the keyed trumpet and the ophicleide, French horns, the materiality of brass instruments, the saxhorn, the conservation of historical brass instruments, and the trombone and acoustics, this sixth edition is open to all brass-related topics, highlighting interaction of brass instruments with their musical contexts. It is held in collaboration with the Historic Brass Society. Keynote addresses will be given by Sandy Coffin, Ignace De Keyser, Trevor Herbert, Sabine Klaus, Arnold Myers, and Anneke Scott.

It will include papers, lecture recitals and concerts with spoken commentary on all topics of brass instruments of the long 19th century, including historically informed performance, style, repertoire, history, and instruments. The official language for the conference is English.

The symposium website is www.hkb-interpretation.ch/rbic. All information on program, fees and accommodation will be published there.

Charles Toet named 2022 Christopher Monk Award winner

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Congratulations to the 2022 Christopher Monk Award recipient, Charles Toet!

Toet was born in 1951 in the Hague. He received his musical training at the Royal Conservatory of the Hague, where he studied modern trombone with Anne Bijlsma (sr.) and Arthur Moore and where he began to specialize in early music and Baroque trombone. He taught at the same institution from 1976-2018, as well as at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis (Basel) from 1990-2019 and the Musikhochschule in Trossingen (Germany) from 1996-2007.

He currently divides his energies between the seventeenth century (mostly with Concerto Palatino of which he is the co-founder) and the Classical and early Romantic repertoires, played on original instruments.

Charles Toet has performed and recorded extensively with Bruce Dickey and Concerto Palatino and with numerous other ensembles of particular importance to the history of early music, including Syntagma Musicum of Amsterdam (Kees Otten), The Taverner Players of London (Andrew Parott), the Hilliard Ensemble, Hespérion XX (Jordi Savall), La Petite Bande (Sigiswald Kuijken), the vocal ensemble Currende (Erik van Nevel), Tragicomedia (Stephen Stubbs), Cantus Cölln (Konrad Junghänel), Bach Collegium Japan (Susuki Masaaki), The Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra (Ton Koopman), and the Orchestre des Champs-Elysées (Philippe Herreweghe).

Considered a pioneer in the performance practice and repertoire of the historical trombone, Charles Toet is frequently asked to be a guest performer and teacher in early music projects and courses around the world.

For more information about The Monk Award, visit https://historicbrass.org/community/awards/christopher-monk-award

 

Meet our HBS Secretary, Dr. Joanna Hersey!

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Serving as Secretary of the Historic Brass Society is Dr. Joanna Hersey, a tubist, composer, and educator. In addition to her tuba degrees, Joanna also holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.

Her work in the areas of race and gender is found in Volume 20 of our Historic Brass Society Journal, where she showcased the activity of female brass musicians touring through the American vaudeville era. Joanna served as Principal Tubist with the United States Coast Guard Band, and is now Associate Dean of Student Success and Curriculum for the College of Arts and Sciences, and Professor of Music, at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.

We are very grateful for all that Joanna brings to the HBS!

 

 

Early Brass Music Festival Session

Brass lovers enjoyed the 2022 Early Brass Festival

A close-knit group of historic brass lovers and performers recently enjoyed the first post-pandemic Historic Brass Festival at the Vintage Brass Festival in July in Northfield Minn., USA. The two festivals have collaborated about every three years since 2006. 

This year, there were 11 presentations, an informal Baroque trumpet playing session, a virtual presentation of this year’s Christopher Monk Award, and around 35 musical groups played in about 75 total performances over the duration of the festival. Some of the performers even included four members of the Historic Brass Society’s executive board. Stanley Curtis (HBS president,) Elisa Koehler (HBS vice-president,) and Steven Lundahl (HBS Executive Board member,) and Michael Connor (managing editor of Hisoric Brass Today) all played in Connor’s Newberry’s Victorian Cornet Band. Connor was one of the presenters. Curtis also played in the Kentucky Baroque Trumpets group.

The festival was also an opportunity to present the 2022 Christopher Monk Award to Charles Toet. Read more about Toet and this prestigious award.