By Janelle Fisher
City Pages Editor
Advanced middle and high school brass players from across Northeast Wisconsin are being invited to participate in the inaugural UW-Green Bay Brass Day, a one-day event featuring instrument-specific sessions and masterclasses and an ensemble performance.
Brass Day is led by UW-Green Bay’s own brass instructors — Michelle McQuade-Dewhirst, French horn; Kenneth Johnson, low brass/trombone; and Adam Gaines, trumpet.
The day, geared towards middle school and high school brass players, kicks off at 9 a.m. and features instrument-specific sectionals and masterclasses led by McQuade-Dewhirst, Johnson and Gaines alongside instructors from the Brass Institutes of America, ending in an all-participant ensemble performance.
“It’s sort of a culminating performance at the end of the day,” McQuade-Dewhirst said. “I love events where you start from scratch in the morning and you have a product by the afternoon. It’s the closest thing to instant gratification that we get as musicians.”
“There’s going to be a lot of great learning throughout the day, but I think everyone’s going to be pretty excited for that last hour,” Gaines said. “We’ll start out with our BIA artists recital, which we’re going to also play on and go straight into the student concert. They’ll have multiple rehearsals in their mass participant ensemble and then they’ll perform that at the end, just in time for their parents to see.”
Throughout the day, participants will get the opportunity to learn under and build connections with new instructors.
“It’s an opportunity for local musicians to have access to professionals from around the country,” Gaines said. “They always have access to us, and they’ll still get that… But they’ll also get to work with professors from Brass Institutes of America, which is a national organization. We have professors coming in from North Carolina and one from UW-Madison.”
But it’s not just new instructors that organizers hope the students who attend will build connections with over their shared interest.
“They get the chance to not only do educational activities and learn from us, but then to play together, too, and meet each other — kids from all over different middle schools and high schools in the area.”
The trio of organizers all recalled attending similar events early in their musical journeys and looked forward to ensuring that the same type of opportunities would be available to today’s aspiring musicians as well.
“Hopefully we have kids who are coming together with this sort of shared interest and we can all just sort of geek out about brass together for the day,” McQuade-Dewhirst said. “It’s a little bit more specialized than what they might be getting day to day in band class.”
The trio of organizers recalled having attended events like this as aspiring musicians.
“Doing events like this makes me really excited because we’ve all done them and being able to create these events for the next generation is really special,” Johnson said.
And of course, the day poses an opportunity to show students what opportunities exist for them to continue to pursue music beyond high school.
“We work with students locally all the time,” Gaines said. “We go to high schools and things like that. But to get them on our campus to see our facilities… where we actually work and what we’re doing. To show them the types of things that if they think about coming to college — especially to come to college here — they could continue on with, so they understand what we do.
To get them out of their high school or middle school mindset about ‘that’s where all the music happens’ and to understand that there’s a lot more going on in the community, that’s a really big part of it, too.”
Not sure if Brass Day is the right experience for you? Johnson said there are a few key signs that you’ll be in the right place.
“If you have questions about brass, if you’re interested in brass playing, if you look forward to band as part of your daily schedule, or even if you don’t but you want to, come to Brass Day and have a great time,” Johnson said. “You’re going to be with people that are excited about the instruments, about the professionals and the other students. Days like this mark big growth. We’re always getting a little bit better, but days like this always make a big difference on the future of your playing and musicianship.”
And the trio said prospective participants are always welcome to reach out and see how Brass Day could support their journey as a musician.
“They don’t have to have an immense amount of skill to be able to come and get something out of this…” Gaines said. “If people aren’t really sure if maybe it’s for them or not, they should just have a conversation with one of us.”
“People should feel free to sort of come as they are and we’ll meet them where they are,” McQuade-Dewhirst said. “We’ll figure out the best way to make the day valuable for them.”
More information about UW-Green Bay Brass Day, including how to register, can be found at uwgb.edu/music/events/brass-day.
Source:Bonding over brass UW-Green Bay to build student skills, connections at inaugural Brass Day