COLLEGIATE BRASS

 

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Steph and Paul at the Iowa Municipal Band Festival in Boone.

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Here's our performance at Bandshell Park in Ames a few years ago.  A few brave souls stayed to the end to hear "Alexander's Ragtime Band."

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Getting ready for the July 4 parade at Living History Farms.

BACKGROUND

On February 20, 1984, Collegiate Brass was formed as a permanent part of the music ministry program at Collegiate United Methodist Church/Wesley Foundation in Ames, Iowa. Their first performance, accompanying hymns and other special music, was part of a special service celebrating 200 years of Methodism in the United States. Their second performance was in a talent show in CUMC/WF's Wesley Hall.

Since those first two performances, Collegiate Brass has performed over 600 times, including Iowa State University concerts and events, madrigal dinners, state history festivals, Living History Farms, Ames community concerts and events, weddings, music camps, worship services, Iowa Annual Methodist Conference, church dinners and other events. Though most performances have been in Ames, some have been elsewhere in Iowa and as far away as Illinois and Pennsylvania.  Their repertoire includes show tunes, movie music, Renaissance dances and madrigals, folk songs and hymns, sacred music, spirituals, patriotic tunes, traditional jazz/swing/blues, and seasonal music.

The members of the group include Paul Anderson (tuba--professor of landscape architecture and professor of agronomy), David Stephenson (trumpet--professor of electrical engineering), Bion Pierson (trumpet--professor of aerospace engineering), Stephani Scherbart (horn--library assistant), and Max Morris (trombone--professor of statistics). Over 50 other ISU and local musicians have performed with Collegiate Brass.

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Repertoire

The majority of our repertoire is brass quintet music for the standard instrumentation of two trumpets, horn, trombone, and tuba. However, a significant portion of our music library is for other numbers and combinations of brass instruments, ranging from trios to octets and a few brass choir pieces. Here are some of our favorites:

Openers

Renaissance and Baroque

19th century

Hymns

With organ

Folk songs

Christmas

20th Century

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Wedding Information

Our repertoire for weddings includes prelude selections, seating music, processionals, hymns, candle lighting music, recessionals, postludes, and reception music. Some selections are for brass alone; others are for brass and organ. Selections range from trumpet solos and duets to brass quartets, quintets, and sextets. A list of our more-commonly played selections is included below.

Contact Collegiate Brass by calling one of the members:

First, we need to know the following:

Second, we can help you select specific pieces from our repertoire in several ways: consultation over the phone, in a meeting, or at one of our regular weekly rehearsals. If you have planned a specific piece of music that is not in our sheet music collection, we can order it for you. Published brass ensemble music typically costs from $5 to $35. Also, in some cases when your specific selection has not been published, one of us can arrange it for our group to play in your wedding.

Rehearsals for your wedding music begin with our regular weekly rehearsals starting several weeks before your wedding ceremony. We'll be at your scheduled wedding rehearsal to help refine the timing and length of the music we play and to help coordinate our playing with the other parts of the wedding ceremony. It helps us prepare if you give us a copy of your printed program at or before the rehearsal.

Fees are based on how much music you want us to play and how many brass musicians are needed to play the music you select. In addition, if the wedding is not located in Ames, our fees will include travel expenses. Also, as described above, fees will include half the cost of sheet music that we purchase for your wedding. We prefer that you pay the total fees in a single check (made out to one of us) at your scheduled rehearsal.

We've even played a Renaissance wedding in costume, with coach horn fanfares and zink trios:

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Wedding Repertoire

We've listed our most common wedding repertoire according to when we most commonly play each piece. All pieces are quintets unless noted otherwise.

Prelude

Seating music

Processional

Candle lighting

Hymns

Recessional

Postlude

Reception

Christmas

Band

 

Cerveny Euphonium

 

Paul Anderson's home page

Last updated: 16 July 2008