Tea and Trumpets

Holyoke Civic Symphony highlights the main four brass instruments in an orchestra during this season of “The Brass Menagerie.” The trumpet featured in HCS’ “Tea and Trumpets” concert on  March 10, 3 pm. In the Fine and Performing Arts building at Holyoke Community College. There is no charge for admission; door donations gladly accepted.
HCS's October concert highlighted the tuba and in December it was the French horn for its holiday concert.
"Tea and Trumpets"  will feature Sheldon Ross  as trumpet guest soloist performing in Vincent Persichetti's "The Hollow Men."  
Persichetti published The Hollow Men for solo trumpet and string orchestra in 1948.  The work was inspired By T.S. Eliot’s poem of the same name. Ross comments that  "Persichetti’s music brilliantly portrays the poem’s essence, and he chose the trumpet as solo instrument for its expansive capacity, for expression, range, and wide contrast of dynamics.”
Dynamic and versatile freelance performer, Sheldon Ross plays his trumpet in the Valley and throughout New England.  He returns to play with HCS, his ‘favorite orchestra’  (past guest soloist  in Copland’s “Quiet City”). Sheldon maintains a private teaching studio, teaches trumpet for Belchertown Public Schools and is on faculty at the Northampton Community Music Center. He is a principal trumpet for the Keene Chamber Orchestra and a member of the Clarion Brass Quintet,  Premier Brass Quintet, Ragtime Five Brass Quintet, and Fanfare Brass Choir.
Composer and conductor Quinn Mason (b.1996) is  based in Dallas, Texas,  is one of the most sought-after young composers in the US.  Concerning his “Inspiration! Festive Overture”, Mason states that the piece is dedicated to the power of inspiration and the will to inspire.
Piotri Tchaikovsky's "Pathetique" - also known as  Symphony No. 6  in B minor, Op. 74  - Tchaikovsky’s final completed symphony was written from February through August 1893. The composer conducted its first performance in Saint Petersburg on October 28, 1893, nine  days before his death. While the first performance of his sixth symphony was not  a success, after its second performance, just days after Tchaikovsky’s death, it was hailed a symphonic masterpiece.