11th Annual Maryland Brass Festival

February 27, 2010 |

Artist-in-Residence Brian Shaw

Goucher College will host the 11th Annual Maryland Brass Festival on Saturday, February 27, from 10 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. As always, the festival highlight will be a free public concert in the college’s Haebler Memorial Chapel at 7:30 p.m.

The daylong festival features an array of free public events that celebrate early brass instruments. Attendees who are unfamiliar with these historic instruments will get a chance to learn more, and aficionados will have the opportunity to network, practice, and perform. A full schedule of events is available online at www.goucher.edu/earlybrass.

This year, the concert will feature performances by the Kentucky Baroque Trumpets; the U.S. Army Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps; the Festival Natural Trumpet Ensemble; and the artist-in-residence, Brian Shaw.

Shaw is assistant professor of trumpet and jazz studies at Louisiana State University (LSU) and is co-principal trumpet of the Dallas Wind Symphony under the direction of Maestro Jerry Junkin. Shaw is one of the few trumpeters in the world today able to perform the most difficult literature on the valveless Baroque trumpet. Recognized internationally for his versatility, Shaw also performs classical and 20th-century pieces on the modern trumpet and jazz solos and lead trumpet in big bands.

He has competed in several international competitions and won first prize in the 2001 International Trumpet Guild Mock Orchestra Competition, the 2002 ITG Solo Competition, and the 1998 National Trumpet Competition Jazz Division, and he was the silver medalist in the 2004 Ellsworth Smith Competition. He was also a semi-finalist in the 2000 Maurice André Competition in Paris, accompanied by pianist W. David Hobbs.

He has performed as a soloist with the Dallas Wind Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, Eastman Conductor's Orchestra, Belle Meade Baroque, the Miro Quartet, Alabama Symphony, Acadiana Symphony, LSU Wind Ensemble, and the LSU Jazz Ensemble, and he will be the soloist on the premiere of a new concerto called “Redshift"” for trumpet (by LSU faculty member Brett William Dietz) with the Eastman Wind Ensemble this May.

Shaw will host a clinic and will discuss differences and the similarities in playing the high baroque natural trumpet as well jazz lead trumpet at 1 p.m. in Merrick Lecture Hall.

The festival is sponsored by Goucher’s Laura Graham Cooper Lecture Fund.