The Canadian Brass -- a quintet known for blending virtuosity with humor -- will give this year’s performance in the annual Shirley and Chas Hockett Chamber Music Concert Series at Ithaca College. Named after two longtime educators, the series honors the Hocketts’ love of music and devotion to Ithaca College and its School of Music. The free concert will take place on Monday, Nov. 27, at 8:15 p.m. in Ford Hall in the James J. Whalen Center for Music.
The program will include works by Bach and Forsyth, tangos by Astor Piazzolla and highlights from Bizet’s "Carmen" as well as songs of Glenn Miller and seasonal selections. Members of the quintet will also teach master classes in the School of Music.
Now in its 36th year, the Canadian Brass continues to enchant audiences worldwide with its unique blend of impeccable playing, lowbrow antics, and genre-blending repertoire. This redoubtable quintet has become the standard by which brass quintets are judged.
Over the years, the Canadian Brass has developed a unique character and audience rapport that has proven hugely successful. Performances run the gamut from formal classical concerts to music served up with lively dialogue and theatrical effects. But no matter the style, the music is central and played with dedication and excellence.
The five musicians spend most of their time on tour and have performed with major symphony orchestras in the United States, Canada, Europe and Japan. Millions of TV viewers have seen them on "The Tonight Show," "Entertainment Tonight," "Evening at Pops" (with John Williams and the Boston Pops) and numerous PBS specials. They have created over a dozen videos, including "Three Nights with Canadian Brass," which captures the group in performance over three decades.
The first performance in the Shirley and Chas Hockett Chamber Music Concert Series was given by the Bach Aria Group on Oct. 25, 2000, the anniversary of the day Shirley and Chas Hockett first met, in a mathematics course at the University of Michigan. Chas, who passed away in November 2000, enjoyed a distinguished academic career at Cornell University, from which he retired in 1982 as the Goldwin Smith Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and Linguistics. Chas also had a passion for music, which he shared with his wife, Shirley, professor emerita of mathematics at Ithaca College, and with their five children. He wrote a number of works, including an opera, "Dona Rosita," which was performed by the Ithaca Opera Association in the early 1970s. After retiring from Cornell, Chas Hockett devoted himself to composing solo and chamber music.
