Spanish Brass and Steve  http://www.sbalz.com/

Gave an excellent concert on Tuesday evening in Alzira, home of the Spanish Brass summer concerts and courses.  Although arriving directly from Cincinnati and suffering from serious jet lag, the capacity audience really seem to enjoy the evening music which was drawn from music from the recent CD that was recorded near Valencia by Steve and the quintet.  The pieces that were performed included the specially commissioned pieces by Colomber, who  in fact was in attendance at the concert, although his home is in California.  It was a treat for Steve to meet him and thank him for writing this spectacular 10 minute work for euphonium and Brass quintet.  The other major work was Brass and Wines, that is the title track of the CD which is due for release in October.  The other works performed were ‘Kaleidoscopic Overdrive’ Ben McMillan, Bravura Variations (variations on twinkle twinkle little star) which also saw a little moment of comedy, where India Bonet and Steve changed instruments beginning of the piece.  Due to a slight physical resemblance, the audience were, to say the least, a little confused for a while…  But then all became clear.

Spanish Brass should be congratulated for their innovative work in organizing such festivals, and as you can see from their website, a host of star performers and teachers were present.  The following morning Steve gave it to our a masterclass for the 15 excellent young euphonium students that were present on the course, and were studying with the Swiss euphonium player and teacher Thomas Rüedi.

From there, Steve returned home for one day caring for the long trip to Japan the National Youth Brass Band of Scotland…  This tour will see the first video tour diary and the first instalments are appearing now!