Brass music by American Composers

Gaudete Brass

Cedille Records CDR 90000

Gaudete Brass offers music written by American composers in the last six years; six of the pieces were written for Gaudete Brass and receive their premier recordings here.

There was a certain conventionality about the first tracks, but Stacy Garrop seized and held our attention as did the other lady composer Joan Tower. Rob Deemer's exploration of brass techniques, Bell, Mute & Slide is a winner, which would merit inclusion in any brass quintet's programmes, and several of the others picture American urban scenes.

Joan Tower's Copperwave celebrates the material from which most brass instruments are made.

Impeccable playing and ensemble, vividly recorded as to be expected from this reliable Chicago label.

Peter Grahame Woolf