Brass REALM is an acronym for the members of our ensemble: Ryan Little, Ethan Bensdorf, Aaron McCalla, Liam Day, and Marques Young.

The COVID-19 situation has turned the entire world upside down and seemingly erased live music altogether. Performers are struggling to get up each day and continue the work to which they have devoted their lives. While a lot of our newfound free time has been spent staring at our instruments and feeling new levels of frustration and insecurity, there have also been moments of joy and inspiring creativity.

Our trumpet player, Ethan Bensdorf, played a brief concert for his neighbors in the NYC neighborhood of Chelsea with a rooftop serenade every evening at 7PM through the early part of the pandemic, a neighborhood gesture that led to national attention and a heartwarming article in The Wall Street Journal.

I personally have found the time to reconnect with colleagues from around the world whom I no longer get to see or work with regularly. After performing and living in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for almost a decade, and Naples, Florida after that, it has been wonderful to have the time to reconnect with the people whom I grew close with over the years. These renewed friendships have been my bright side to this pandemic and part of the reason Brass REALM has been able to come together for this concert.

The performances produced by 45^th Parallel are a glowing example of musicians finding creative ways to keep playing together during this challenging time. Watching a performance of colleagues perform on the 45^th Parallel online series several weeks ago, I was happy to see the familiar faces of James Shields and Laura Metcalf performing music together in real time. It felt so normal to see them performing as they always do. I almost forgot that they were playing together from across the country. This gave me such an immense sense of hope.

That hope was felt fivefold when I gathered the members of Brass REALM and we successfully completed the first transcontinental online chamber music reading. It is our pleasure to build on that successful test and present a full Brass REALM concert with our players located in Malaysia, Florida, Chicago, and New York City.

I chose the music for this performance with two goals in mind. Of course, I want you, our audience, to enjoy each and every selection. But this is also an opportunity for us, as performers, to come together in real time to experience the beautiful and irreplaceable feeling of making music together.

Grief Song by Alexander Arutiunian is a musical prayer that hopefully gives us all a moment to reflect on the sacrifices that are being made every day, and the many more to come. Importantly, that somber prayer seamlessly transforms into the uplifting Morning Song, a musical metamorphosis from grief into hope through Arutiunian's simple and beautiful melodies.

I invite you to join us in riding the wave of timeless melodies throughout the rest of our program.

The Girl with the Flaxen Hair is simply one of the most beautiful and pleasing pieces from the famous impressionist composer Claude Debussy. Based on an unforgettable melody, it is a sonic back massage. Originally written for piano, this work’s lush harmonies are enhanced by the richness of a finely tuned brass ensemble.

We highlight the festive spirit of the brass section with selections from the Renaissance Dances of Susato. A stalwart of the brass ensemble literature, these five folk melodies bring back fond memories from when I played them at the Pacific Music Festival with Ethan, at Tanglewood with Aaron, and in Malaysia with Marques. It will be wonderful to add this memory of playing Susato with Ryan as well.

Our trombonist, Marques, is a rare breed of instrumentalist who is at home both in the concert hall and in a jazz club. One of the first songs that I learned when dipping my toes into the world of jazz was Misty. This is a melody that, when played by Marques, will no doubt get you a little misty.

The lyrics to the iconic Beatles song Yesterday struck a chord with me during these difficult times. We will all undoubtedly hear the lyrics in our heads as we enjoy this arrangement for brass quintet:

Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play.
Now I need a place to hide away.
Oh, I believe in yesterday.

We will close our concert with selections from Bernstein’s West Side Story, arranged brilliantly for brass quintet by Jack Gale. He was able to capture the passion and energy of Broadway in his arrangement, and we are happy to deliver that passion and loving energy from NYC, Florida, Chicago and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Keeping socially distanced is necessary for the sake of public health, but 45^th Parallel has found a way to lessen that distance with live music. We hope our program can, indeed, bring us all closer together.

Liam Day