The video records a live concert by the world‑famous Carolina Brass quintet, presented as part of Gardner‑Webb University’s Distinguished Artist Series. The introduction, delivered by a host (Speaker A) and trumpeter Tim Hudson, thanks the university, its music department, and the Wampler Caudill Fund, and announces that the performance will be shared with high schools along with educational materials and offers Zoom master‑class opportunities. The ensemble consists of Gardner‑Webb faculty Tim Hudson (trumpet), Bob Campbell (horn), Dave Wolfek (trombone/low‑brass instructor), Matt Ransom (tuba), and newer member Antonio “Tony” García (principal trumpet of the Charleston Symphony). The narration interweaves personal anecdotes, historical background of the group (founded in 1997, 23‑25 years together), and introductions of each piece. The program includes arrangements of: - “Caroline in the Morning” (Arthur Frackenpohl), - “Phantom of the Opera” (Andrew Lloyd Webber, arranged by Jack Gale), - Aaron Copland’s “Simple Gifts” from Appalachian Spring (arranged by Yari Villanueva), - William Boyce’s Voluntary in B‑flat, - Astor Piazzolla’s “Oblivion”, - A Vivaldi‑Bach hybrid arrangement (“Vivaldi Bach Dooby”) by former member Steve Doobie, - Johann Sebastian Bach’s Easter cantata aria (arranged by Harry Herforth), - Stanley Hoffman’s “Fanfare, Tango, and Fuguetta on Hebrew Themes”, - Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story medley (arranged by Jack Gale), - A Canadian Brass‑style funeral march arrangement (by Jack Gale), and a closing piece “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square” (also Jack Gale). Throughout, the speakers highlight the role of arranger‑musicians (often trumpeters) and note the unique instrumentation (e.g., piccolo trumpets for Baroque pieces). The concert also includes dedications to Southern U.S. communities facing hurricanes and thanks to university staff and the audience. The overall tone is enthusiastic, conversational, and community‑focused, emphasizing both artistic excellence and educational outreach.
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Tonight's concert features the world-famous Summit Recording artist Carolina Brass. We want to thank the Gardner-Webb University Distinguished Artist Series Music Department, the Alfred and Shirley Wampler Caudill Fund at Gardner-Webb University. 3 of our brass faculty play in the Carolina Brass. They're Professors Tim Hudson on trumpet, Bob Campbell on horn and Dave Wolfek on trombone, and he teaches low brass— trombone, euphonium, and tuba. We'll be sending tonight's video to high schools along with educational materials. If any of you would like our GWU music faculty to hold Zoom master classes with your students on any instruments, uh, or voice, just contact us. Special thanks to Tim Hudson for putting tonight's concert together. We'll be having more of these concerts in the future and hope you will tell others to join us. Please like our Gardner-Webb University Department of Music page on Facebook. Without further hesitation, let's welcome the world-famous Carolina Brass! Thank you.
All right, thank you very much. That first tune there, Caroline in the Morning, was an arrangement that was done for this group a number of years ago by a very dear friend of ours, Arthur Frackenpohl. Not really a household name, but he is amongst musicians, especially brass players. You'll hear a little bit more about Art as we go on in the program. Really dear friend of ours, and happened to be my next-door neighbor a number of years ago when I lived in New York. This next tune we're going to play is one that I'm sure you'll know, Phantom of the Opera, Andrew Lloyd Webber. Another arrangement done for this group by a man named Jack Gale, another one of our most prolific composers, arrangers for this medium. And Jack is on Broadway. If you have attended a Broadway show in your life in New York City, good chance you heard him playing trombone because he spent his career in the pit, in the pits of New York, I like to say. Good guy, a wonderful musician, and he's been on the faculty at the Manhattan School of Music for many years on their composition faculty. So he did this rank for us as well, and some other things which we'll talk about again later in the program. Now before we go on anymore, I'd like to take a moment to introduce the group. Hey, that was fun, Dave.
Nice job keeping off that TV.
Very nice job.
Thank you.
Thank you.
All right, thank you very much. It's nice to be playing in front of a live audience and an audience live on Facebook as well. Hopefully you can hear us and you can hear us talking. If you If you can't hear us, just click that little frowny thing, and we'll know what you mean. Well, maybe we won't know what you mean. I don't know. But yeah, we're practicing a little social distancing here. We're a little further apart than usual, but after 23 years together, sometimes it's good to get a little distance between us. And so yeah, our next piece, Simple Gifts, it's by American composer Aaron Copland, maybe probably the most famous American composer, and that was sort of by design. Aaron Copland understood that most American composers at the time had been trained by European composers, and they sort of had a European sound, and he wanted American composers to create an American sound in sort of the same way that French composers had a French sound. Russian composers had a Russian sound. You get the idea. And how he did that was he took folk tunes and incorporated them into his music. And this next piece is a great example of that. It is called Simple Gifts, but it's actually part of a larger piece by Copland called Appalachian Spring. And this tune comes in at the end, and it's sort of variations on the shaker tune Simple Gifts. And this is arranged by Yari—
Yari.
Villanueva, who was a trumpet player. He's retired now, but he was a trumpet player in the Air Force Band up in D.C. for quite some time. Here we go, Simple Gifts.
Okay, our next piece is by English composer William Boyce, and it's Voluntary in B-flat, 2-movement work. Slow. and medium. Actually, on the parts it has Italian words, largo and moderate or moderato, but I just thought since he's an English composer, I'd give you the English translations of the movements. William Boyce writing back at the same time as Bach, Baroque composer, and actually Bach, my understanding is it wasn't really like the big popular guy in Germany at the time. He was he was a great composer, but it wasn't until much later that it really became like, oh, he's the guy. Well, in England, Boyce was the guy. So if you were listening to your radio, had your top 40 station on at the time, you probably would have been hearing William Boyce, and this might have been one of the pieces. Although this piece, a lot of you may recognize it from being played at weddings or something like that. William Boyce's Voluntary.
Voluntary.
Thank you.
And B-flat.
Thank you. So the next piece we're going to play is by a very, very famous singer, composer, bandoneonist from Argentina, Astor Piazzolla. Astor Piazzolla was born in 1921, and through his entire life dedicated to the tango, he obviously had wonderful teachers like Carlos Gardel, the typical, very old folk tango style. So he is very famous because he introduced jazz chords and new musical melody into the tango. So that's why Astor Piazzolla's tango, even if it's a very simple name, is called the new tango. He added all these jazz sounds and very wonderful chords and makes all these old pieces like Adiós Nonino or Oblivion, which is the piece we're about to play, much more interesting. We hope you like Oblivion.
I'm just going to say momentarily here, as Bob mentioned earlier, this group, we've been together now for nearly 25 years, 23 years. We got started in 1997, and Bob, Dave, and Matt, and I, We're the original founders of the group. Yes, Brett Apart. And then when John moved to North Carolina, our percussionist, a couple years later, we thought, well, we got to have percussion. And Antonio—
New guy.
Our new guy, yeah. So he just joined the group last year, and it's so wonderful having him with us. I have the honor of playing with him down in Charleston. He's principal of the Charleston Symphony And we'll tell you more about the group later, but just wanted to give Tony a little breather also before he plays this big solo which features him, and he plays it so beautifully. Hope you enjoy Tony's playing and this piece of literature.
How much more can you translate in bad English?
I started to say something to you.
Maybe we should have said it's—
That's not true.
Tony will be signing autographs after the show.
I will do my best to enunciate through these layers of mask. Thank you very much for being here. Tony mentioned jazz chords being introduced into that piece. We're going to go all the way to the birthplace of jazz, New Orleans, the one true American music, this wonderful gumbo that came from Western European harmony, Caribbean and West African rhythms, and all accumulated in New Orleans, came up the Mississippi River. And I would ask that we would dedicate this performance to our friends in the south part of the United States who are bracing for yet another hurricane. We wish them well. And dedicate the St. Louis Blues to their good health.
All right, thanks so much. And as Bob said, it is so nice to be back on stage and be able to play for a live audience. Thank you for being here. And for those listening, Either now live or in the future, because we'll have this up on YouTube and everything else. Thank you for listening. Hope you're enjoying the program as much as we are enjoying playing for you. This next piece— actually, before I, before I announce this piece, I mentioned the guys in the group earlier. I'll go ahead and talk about— so Bob Campbell, he lives in Winston-Salem, and he's our horn professor here at Gardner-Webb. I've known Bob since, I think, 1983, and it's just a real pleasure and a blessing to work with this fella. What a great guy. Dave Wolfak, trombone. I met Dave in high school a couple years back when we were in all-state band together. In the 1900s. Yeah, back in the 1900s, right. I don't know, it must have been 1979, I think, or maybe '80. But anyway, a couple of years back. And Dave is our— as Dr. Sparty said, is our low brass instructor here. And he's the godfather to my children. And what another great guy. All these guys, these are some of my best friends in the world. Wonderful people.
Woo!
So it's great not only getting to work with these guys, on stage, but to get to teach with them too, it's just fantastic. Well, John just walked off a minute ago because— He didn't do very well. He didn't do very well, that's why I got rid of him. Yeah, we don't use percussion for every piece. But John, I met John back in, gosh, I think 1990. We were teaching at a music festival in Maine together. But, you know, he wound up moving to North Carolina, I believe in '99 or so, and has been playing with us ever since. Great having John on board, another wonderful guy. And then Matt Ransom, our tuba player, who we go back to, what, maybe '85, I believe? We met in 1985. And Matt at one point was principal tuba in Winston and Greensboro, still both orchestras?
Both.
Yeah, so he's still in both those orchestras. And, uh, I'm not supposed to say anything. Okay. And, uh, and, and Matt and Dave and, and Bob and I are the, are the original founding members of this group. And it's, to be honest, it's quite unusual to, to have a group with that kind of longevity with the same players, because not only do you have to have good players, but even more importantly is the chemistry and getting along. And that goes, you know, I tell that to my students here all the time. You know, we have to work together in a positive way and build relationships and teamwork, and not only just musicality, but there are many other factors involved. And so, these guys are just wonderful to work with. Tony, on the other hand. And Tony, on the other hand, Tony's a different story, different animal here. So we met just a few years back. I don't know, maybe 5, 6 years, 7 years ago. Just a few years back, we wound up being on a gig together that we were both hired to do. And we had heard of each other, I believe, but had not had the opportunity to meet. And for the past 3 years or so, I think 3 years, I've been fortunate enough to work with this gentleman.
Thank you.
In Charleston. I play second trumpet there, and Tony's the principal trumpet player in Charleston Symphony. And he's been on campus a few times. I have him here as often as I can to work with my students and give them master classes and so forth. I think you've been here just about every year recently. Just a wonderful guy. As you know, he's from Spain. You heard him earlier. And it's just great—
Thank you.
Being able to, having lived in Mexico a number of years ago, to practice my rusty Spanish with Tony. He gives me an opportunity to do that sometimes. So what a blessing and joy to have Tony with us as our newest member of the group. So this next tune— gosh, I've talked so much— written by Vivaldi originally, Concerto D, written by Vivaldi. And then it was taken by Bach. Now we're talking about the Baroque era. So the Baroque era was roughly 1580 to 17— I guess you could say 1600 to 1750. Um, well, Johann Sebastian Bach was born in 1685 and died in 1750. Now we consider him being, you know, I guess arguably the greatest Baroque composer of all time. Well, he took, you know, this incredible Italian Baroque composer Vivaldi, he took his work and made it his own. And then, what, a couple hundred years later, a former member of Carolina Brass, Steve Doobie, a former trumpet player who's a wonderful person, lives over in Basel, Switzerland now. I got to see him just a few years back when I was touring Europe. He did this arrangement for us back when he was still in the group, and we love playing it. It kind of features the piccolo trumpets a little bit, so we'll be playing the smaller instruments here. called piccolo trumpets, and which are used quite frequently in Baroque music. If you've heard Handel's Messiah, for instance, that's often played— well, always played on the piccolo trumpet, and many works of Johann Sebastian Bach like the Brandenburg and so forth. So hope you enjoy this next tune, and we affectionately call it the Vivaldi Bach Dooby. So enjoy Concerto in D.
All right, our next piece is by Johann Sebastian Bach. You've probably heard of him recently.
Yeah.
Yeah, he was, yes, very talented. He didn't have to just steal music from Vivaldi. He could write his own stuff, and this next is one of his own. This was actually written originally for an Easter cantata. It was a tenor and bass aria. with orchestra, and it has been arranged by a trumpet player named—
Harry Herforth.
Harry Herforth, yeah, Harry Herforth. And Harry Herforth was actually, he was a trumpet player in the Boston Symphony and the Cleveland Orchestra, and no longer with us, but this is a fantastic arrangement. And all these arrangements by trumpet players, you know, and there's a reason for that. When you're a trumpet player and you arrange something, you can give yourself all the best parts and you can write in a lot of rests for yourself. So, you know, that's— it's a good angle to go on. Also, Harry Herforth must have had, uh, either a really close friend or a terrible enemy who played tuba, because this piece has got a lot of work for the tuba. So, and I've heard Matt play this before, and it always goes Pretty well, so I'm expecting it to go well again tonight. This is yeah yeah no no pressure, Matt. My spirit be joyful.
Here we go.
We all have a little bit of work in this, I guess.
All right. We're going to play a piece by Stanley Hoffman, who who is one of the editors for Shermer Publishing Company, how we got this piece. It's Fanfare, Tango, and Fuguetta on Hebrew Themes. We had played a concert maybe 15 years ago or so with the Chapel Hill Community Chorus, and they commissioned all kinds of works. It was their either 50th or 75th big anniversary season, so they commissioned lots of works. for choir and brass for, you know, for our quintet with that. And then when they were trying to get these pieces published, they sent them to Schirmer to see. And so then Stanley Hoffman contacted Tim, said, hey, would it be okay for us to use these recordings with the pieces? So he felt good about the way we played them. So that's nice, especially for premiering the pieces. And Tim just happens to say, well, do you have any brass pieces that you've— after you found out he was a composer? Also, what, you both went to New England Conservatory at different times, but, you know, so different connections. And we were talking in the business, music business class this morning about just relationships and some of the things, you know, different people and how those things come about. And so, uh, Stan said, well, I don't have anything, but, uh, I'd love to write you something. And he wrote this piece for us, and it's one of my favorite pieces, just a really beautiful piece, the Fanfare, Tango, and Fuguetta. The fanfare is, the soul of every living being shall bless Your name. And then the tango is based on, when Israel went forth from Egypt. And the fuguetta is, how goodly are Your tents, O Jacob. And then at the end, the fanfare comes back.
Beautiful.
To close out the piece.
Here we go.
So the next piece we're gonna play, it's by probably also one of the most famous American composers and conductors, Leonard Bernstein. I'm sure we all have performed sometime one of his works. This is probably— I'm not gonna say the most famous because he has many famous works, West Side Story, based on the musical drama in 1961, I think.
Probably.
No, maybe. Yeah.
Yes, great. Caroline Branson, good support.
Thank you. Yeah, this is, this is really, this is a wonderful piece arranged also by Jack Gill, which I'm sure they have a big relationship with Carolina Brass. As a matter of fact, these selections have become pretty much standard on the Brass Quintet repertoire. These pieces, Jack Gale composed them for another famous brass quintet, the Empire Brass, and Carolina Brass. Some of the movements are actually exclusively for us. So hope you enjoy tonight and Gee, Officer Crockett! G.
All right, thank you so much. We've got another tune here. This last piece is an arrangement done actually by, or for, the Canadian Brass, and that was one of the first groups that most all of us heard play. similar to what we have here, 2 trumpets, horn, trombone, tuba. They're one of the earlier pioneers, along with New York Brass, of course, Empire Brass, for this type of chamber music. So this arrangement, it's really a fun arrangement. What we've done is we basically, we're telling the story of someone has passed away, Someone's loved one, family member, friend. And at the beginning, there's the slow march to the gravesite. Okay, so it's a New Orleans-style funeral march. So we have the slow march to the gravesite. Once we get there, there's an amen, and then there's a great celebration because their loved one has gone on to heaven. So I hope you enjoy this really fun arrangement. Just a closer walk. 1, 2, ho! 1, 2, ho! Thank you. Thank you very much.
Thank you so much.
We've got— we'll play one more quick one for you here, uh, we love this tune. It's another arrangement by Jack Gale, who did the West Side Story. It's A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square. And I just want to thank, um, Dr. Cole and Dr. Sparty and Dr.
Downs Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Brattain, our president here, and Gardner-Webb for being such incredible hosts. It's just an amazing place to work and to be and to study, to learn, and it's just a joy for us to be here on the stage and working with these students and playing for you. Thanks for tuning in. For those at home who were not able to be here, we greatly appreciate it and hope to see you again in the future. Here we are at Nightingale Thank you.
