The Hart Community Performing Arts Series will present the first concert of its 25th season Friday, Oct. 4, when Seraph Brass returns to the Hart stage. The Hart Series presented its first concert in November of 1999 and, since that time, has offered over 160 concerts presenting outstanding regional, national and international artists in a variety of performance genres. Over that quarter century, the series has asked every visiting artist to work with or present to students from Hart Public Schools and the surrounding school districts. Each season, in partnership with Hart Public Schools, the series offers thousands of experiences with the fine performing arts to those students, at no cost to them or their families. Seraph Brass will continue that tradition by conducting a master class for young brass musicians from the Hart, Shelby and Pentwater band programs on the morning of Oct. 4. The Hart Community Performing Arts Series is a project of the Hart Community Performing Arts Association, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization overseen by a volunteer board of directors and Artistic Director Tom Kirk.
Celebrating its 10th anniversary season, Seraph Brass was founded by trumpet soloist Mary Elizabeth Bowden with a mission to showcase the excellence of female brass players and highlight musicians from marginalized groups, both in personnel and in programming. Winners of the American Prize in Chamber Music, the group has been praised for their “beautiful sounds” (American Record Guide), “fine playing” (Gramophone), and “staggeringly high caliber of performance” (Textura). Seraph primarily performs as a quintet, with a dynamic roster drawing from America’s top brass musicians. Seraph Brass performs a diverse body of repertoire, ranging from original transcriptions to newly commissioned works and core classics. The group has commissioned pieces by Catherine McMichael and Rene Orth: both featured on the Silver Medal Global Music Award-winning debut album Asteria, along with Wolf for solo soprano and brass quintet by Joseph Hallman and most recently Showcase by Jeff Scott. The group regularly participates in commissioning consortiums, recently supporting works by Kevin Day, Mischa Zupko, Marcus Grant, Jennifer Jolley, Sara Jacovino, and Lillian Yee. Seraph’s concerto performances have included Rick DeJonge’s Prelude and Fantasy, James Stephenson’s Dodecafecta, Suite from Mass by Leonard Bernstein and Anthony DiLorenzo’s Chimera. Members of Seraph Brass are passionate about music education and hold teaching positions at the University of North Texas, Shenandoah Conservatory, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In each of their tours, the group works to provide educational outreach to local schools, and they also offer a variety of entrepreneurship and career development workshops, in addition to traditional brass pedagogy and technique classes. The ensemble has toured around the world, including performances at the Tafalla Brass Week in Spain, Lieksa Brass Week in Finland, the Busan Maru International Music Festival in South Korea, the University of Toronto in Canada, the Forum Cultural Guanajuato in Mexico, the International Women’s Brass Conference, the International Trumpet Guild Conference, and a two-week tour across China. Recent touring highlights have included shows and residencies at the Lyric Chamber Music Society in NYC, Interlochen Arts Academy, Brevard Music Center, Chautauqua Institution, Chamber Music Raleigh, National Gallery of Art in D.C., Asheville Chamber Music Series, Virginia Arts Festival, Boise Chamber Music Series, University of North Carolina School for the Arts, Michigan State University, Sarasota’s Artist Series Concerts, Dame Myra Hess Concert Series in Chicago, and Del Valle Fine Arts Presents in California, as well as concerto appearances with the Florence Symphony, the United States Army Band “Pershing’s Own,” and Texas Tech University Wind Ensemble. The group has also toured extensively as Allied Concert Services and Live On Stage artists, and was formerly in residency alongside the Dover Quartet at the Artosphere Festival in Fayetteville, Ark. Members of Seraph Brass have performed with such esteemed ensembles as the London Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Artosphere Festival Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, The Phoenix Symphony, Marlboro Music Festival, Lucerne Music Festival in Switzerland, Britt Festival Orchestra, Richmond Symphony, Chameleon Arts Ensemble, and the Daejeon Philharmonic. Many members of Seraph Brass performed with Adele on her North American tour. Seraph Brass is a Yamaha Performing Group.
The Oct. 4 concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Hart Public Schools Auditorium, located in the Hart Middle School. Season tickets for the series, as well as individual concert tickets, are available on the series website, hartseries.org. For further information, contact Tom Kirk at tomkirk@hartseries.org.
