Brass Brilliance – The Modern Brass Quintet Concert
(Note: This concert was initially named “Fantastic 4 – Trombone Quartet”)
Saturday, September 2, 7:00 PM
at
William D. Davies Memorial Building
Farnsworth Park
568 E. Mount Curve Ave., Altadena, CA 91001
Sponsored by
Rotary Club of Altadena
Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation
Melodia Mariposa’s Brass Brilliance Concert on Saturday, September 2, 2023, will feature five world-class brass musicians from The Modern Brass:
Dan Rosenboom, trumpet • Adam Bhatia, trumpet • Dylan Hart, horn • Steve Suminski, trombone • Doug Tornquis, tuba
Don’t miss this incredible evening of great music arrangements for brass instruments in various styles. Come for all your favorites! It will be an exciting evening with lots of fun!
The concert is FREE. However, RSVP is strongly encouraged due to limited seatings.
Program
Mini Overture (1982) Witold Lutoslawski (1913-1994)
Concerto, BWV 1041 JS Bach (1685-1750), arr. M. Toreille and M. Barré
Allegro
Largo
Allegro vivace
Sonatine (1951) Eugene Bozza (1905-1991)
Allegro vivo
Andante ma non troppo
Vivace
Largo-Allegro vivo
This Dream (1979) Claus Ogerman (1930-2016), arr. Nick Lane
Rounds and Dances (1982) Jan Bach (1937-2020)
Fanfare
Sarabande
Carioca
Idyl
Galop
DOUG TORNQUIST
“A player of astonishing flamboyance” (Los Angeles Times) and “impressive dash” (Orange County Register), Doug Tornquist grew up on a farm in the San Joaquin Valley. He came to Los Angeles for his bachelor’s degree at the University of Southern California, where he studied with Jim Self and Tommy Johnson. He earned his master’s degree from Wichita State University, where he played the WSU faculty brass quintet, the Wichita Symphony Orchestra, and toured with the Saint Louis Symphony, under the baton of Leonard Slatkin.
He returned to Los Angeles in 1987 to earn his Doctor of Musical Arts degree from USC and soon became a busy freelance performer, playing everywhere from amusement parks to the ballet, opera, and symphony (sometimes on the same day). He has played with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Opera, Pacific Symphony, the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, and all the regional orchestras. He has recorded with Diana Krall, Neil Diamond, Barbra Streisand, Josh Groban, Randy Newman, Meatloaf, and Beck, among others.
The first time he was invited to play on a film score was in 1989 for “Edward Scissorhands.” Since then he has played on the soundtracks of over 800 films, TV shows, and video games. He was the (tuba) voice of “Wreck-It Ralph,” played on John Williams’ most recent scores, and was a featured soloist with John Lithgow on “I’m a Manatee.” He regularly records for Alexandre Desplat, Hans Zimmer, Harry Gregson Williams, James Newton Howard, Randy Newman, Christophe Beck, and many other composers.
Among his more notable recordings are the Grammy-winning premiere of the Penderecki Credo (with the Oregon Bach Festival), and two recordings with Quintadillac, a German brass quintet. He recently released a solo CD, Feels Like Far, and produced a CD of holiday brass music, Fiat Lux.
He teaches at the University of Southern California and the California Institute of the Arts.
DAN ROSENBOOM
Dan Rosenboom is an internationally recognized trumpet player, composer, and producer. He is known as a prolific member of the Los Angeles creative music scene, having released more than 25 albums of original music as a solo artist and bandleader, and has supported over 60 artists across over 100 releases on his label, Orenda Records. Rosenboom is a proud member of the Hollywood Studio Symphony and has recorded for over 200 major film and television soundtracks with such notable composers as John Williams, Danny Elfman, James Newton Howard, Alan Silvestri, Alexandre Desplat, and many more. He has also performed with such elite ensembles as the LA Philharmonic, the LA Chamber Orchestra, and the LA Opera. His own music eschews genre distinctions and draws from such disparate influences as Black American Music, metal and experimental rock, contemporary classical music, folk music from the Balkans, and a broad range of progressive music from the avant-garde. He studied at the Eastman School of Music, CalArts, and UCLA, where he earned advanced degrees in music. The Los Angeles Times has called Dan Rosenboom “a musician dedicated to exploration and expression, regardless of anyone’s imagined boundaries,” and “a phenomenon.”
As a composer, Rosenboom has been recognized with grants and awards from the American Composers Forum, ASCAP, the Meet the Composer Foundation, and the Yvar Mikhashoff Trust for New Music. As a bandleader, he has brought his music to such renowned stages as the Monterey Jazz Festival, Angel City Jazz Festival, Jazzfestival Saalfelden, and Jazz em Agosto. Rosenboom has solidified his place as a pillar in LA’s creative music community through his work with multiple generations of LA icons and rising talents, through his label Orenda Records, with his Balkan-inspired instrumental rock band PLOTZ! and improv group DR. MiNT, and across nearly two decades of noteworthy interdisciplinary performances at most of Los Angeles’s premiere venues.
Rosenboom’s iconoclastic protest band Burning Ghosts has drawn international attention for their rousing blend of experimental jazz, punk, and metal as a response to modern socio-political ills. To date, they have released four albums, including one on John Zorn’s legendary Tzadik label, and have toured in the US and Europe. In a review of their self-titled debut, Something Else Reviews dubbed them “The Rage Against the Machine of Jazz.”
Rosenboom is an advocate for progressive music education. He currently teaches at UCLA and California Institute of the Arts, and his trumpet pedagogy book, The Boom Method: Universal Fundamentals for Trumpet and Other Instruments, Vol. 1, was published by Balqhuidder Music in 2019. His writing has also been published in John Zorn’s Arcana IX: Musicians on Music on Tzadik.
Dan Rosenboom is proud to be an endorsing artist for Yamaha Trumpets, Bob Reeves Brass Mouthpieces, AEA Microphones, Horn FX, and Kirlin Cables.
DYLAN HART
You may not know Dylan Skye Hart by name, but you have heard him play the horn. Proud Latino and Los Angeles native, Dylan is a busy freelance musician. Depending on the day, he can be found recording video games, motion pictures, theme parks, or television shows.
He has recorded films with many great composers including John Williams, Hans Zimmer, John Powell, Randy Newman, Alexandre Desplat, James Newton Howard, and Alan Silvestri. Some movie titles on which Dylan can be heard playing the principal horn include Star Wars IX: The Rise of Skywalker, Jungle Cruise, Onward, Call of the Wild, Ready Player One, Deadpool 2, Star Wars VIII: The Last Jedi, and The Jungle Book. Dylan has also recorded albums and appeared on television with music legends Lady Gaga, John Legend, Michael Bublé, Sting, Stevie Wonder, Wu-Tang Clan, M83, Gladys Night, Yo-Yo Ma, and The Beatles. His solos can also be heard on his namesake Bob Dylan’s albums Shadows in the Night and Fallen Angel.
Dylan has toured with John Williams’ Star Wars in Concert, Eden Espinosa of Wicked, and The Who, doubling on horn, trumpet, trombone, Wagner tuba, and mellophone. In the orchestral world, Dylan is the principal horn of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra and performs regularly with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and San Diego Symphony. Dylan is also a member of the Los Angeles Horn Quartet and Modern Brass Quintet.
As an alumnus of the University of Southern California, he studied with Vincent DeRosa, James Thatcher, and Richard Todd. Dylan currently teaches horn at California State University, Long Beach. When not performing, Dylan, a “foodie”, enjoys cooking, playing ice hockey and soccer, golfing, and hanging out with his wife and fellow hornist Annie Bosler.
ADAM BHATIA
Adam Bhatia is a freelance trumpet player based in the LA area. Born and raised in Long Beach, he attended UCLA and earned a Bachelor of the Arts in Music as well as a Master in Music, studying with Jens Lindemann.
Active in the Los Angeles music scene, Adam has performed with groups such as the LA Phil, LA Chamber Orchestra, LA Opera, Long Beach Symphony, San Bernardino Symphony Orchestra, and recorded many movie and tv sessions. He is a former winner of the National Trumpet Competition, International Trumpet Guild Solo, and Orchestral Competition, and was a Yamaha Young Performing Artist Award winner.
Adam resides in Long Beach with his wife and two kids, is an avid car aficionado, and scratch golfer.
STEVEN SUMINSKI
Steven Suminski regularly performs with professional orchestras throughout the state of California as well as working as an active freelance trombonist in the greater Los Angeles area. He is currently the principal trombonist with Symphony Silicon Valley in San Jose, The Riverside County Philharmonic, Ballet San Jose, and the Santa Monica Symphony. In addition, Suminski has appeared with many other groups including the San Francisco Opera, Santa Barbara Symphony, Fresno Philharmonic, Berkeley Symphony, and the San Bernardino, and Redlands Symphonies.
Steve is also a founding member of the award-winning chamber music group, Brass Pacifica. Brass Pacifica currently performs in over 50 venues a year working as performing artists for The Music Center of Los Angeles and the Orange County Performing Arts Center. Steve has performed with his group all over the country including a nine-month residency in Bar Harbor, Maine that was sponsored by Chamber Music America and the National Endowment for the Arts. With such an eventful career playing the trombone, in his free time, Steve is content to just slide through life.
THE MODERN BRASS
The Modern Brass (MB) was formed in 1992 to explore possibilities for brass chamber music, both recent and canonic. MB works with composers, often featuring new works written for them, most recently with Mark Isham for the acclaimed ABC TV drama, American Crime Story.
MB also presents fascinating and rare solo masterpieces and pieces for brass instruments in unconventional settings. As the brass quintet genre is relatively new, MB reaches back across the centuries for transcriptions of baroque, classical, and romantic music.
The Modern Brass are busy freelance players in southern California, performing with the major orchestras, and for TV/film soundtracks.