HBS Makes HIstory in NYC

The Historic Brass Society -- "an international organization of amateur and professional brass musicians and scholars concerned with the entire range of early brass music, from Antiquity to 20th-century jazz" – held its Second International Historic Brass Symposium this month in New York City. The attendance at the symposium far outpaced expectations, and by giving a paper there, I am proud to have been part of the history-making.

New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art

I gave my paper, "American Women's Brass Quartets before 1900: 'Clever, versatile, and fair to look upon'," at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in an afternoon session devoted to the 19th-century. The early history of American women's brass quartets is essentially unknown, and the audience seemed to take a keen interest in the research I have done on Georgie Dean Spaulding's "Ladies Cornet Quartette," the Park Sisters Cornet Quartet, and the "Ladies' Brass Quartette" of the Boston Fadettes. I was pleased to share the session with Don Larry, whose presentation on brass bands in Arizona was exhaustive (but not at all exhausting), and with the highly esteemed British scholar, Trevor Herbert, who spoke on "British Military Culture and Music in the Long Nineteenth Century."

The Park Sisters (courtesy of Special Collections,

University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa)

I enjoyed the symposium tremendously. There were too many great performances and scholarly papers to list here. My faves included papers by Trevor Herbert, Herbert Heyde, and the inimitable Don Smithers, the interview of Gunther Schuller, and the sessions on cornetto and African trumpets; also the concerts by trumpeter Crispian Steele-Perkins, cornettist Michael Collver, the sackbut ensemble Sacabuche, the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis Trumpet Ensemble, the Caecilia-Concert, His Majestys Sagbutts and Cornetts, and Les Sacqueboutiers. Jaroslav Roucek's performance of the Hummel concerto on keyed trumpet was a gem among gems, and Gil Cline's Trumpet Consort von Humboldt (from Humboldt State University in Arcata, California) set a new standard for creativity in the world of early music.

The full title of the symposium – in true bipartite scholarly fashion – was, "The Second International Historic Brass Symposium: Brass Instruments, Repertoire, Performance, and Culture." The majority of the symposium was held at the Greenwich Village campus of The New School. There was also a full day of papers and concerts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, followed by a concert held at The Church of St. Luke in the Fields. Most days offered informal playing sessions for groups of cornettists, natural trumpeters, natural hornists, and perhaps even some unnatural brass instruments, the existence of which is known only to brass literati. Makers of period reproductions – including Egger, Seraphinoff, Munkwitz, and others – were present and showed their wares. Rainer Egger received the HBS Christopher Monk Award in the closing session.

If you have an interest in historical things of a brassy nature, I highly recommend joining the Historic Brass Society and attending their events, which include festivals and conferences and – every 25 years or so – historic symposiums like this one.