13Later this month, the Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra will be presenting a special concert, About that Brass. There is a great deal of music written for brass and the orchestra is excited to show off their musicians during this program.

“The orchestra is thrilled to feature our tremendous brass section in this program of primarily original works written for brass dating as far back as the 1590s,” Music Director, Stefan Sanders said. “There will be 14 brass instruments (four trumpets, five French horns, four trombones and one tuba) and three percussionists performing on this program.”

The concert will take place at St. John’s Episcopal Church.

“We are grateful for the special relationship we have with the St. John’s community,” Sanders said. “The intimacy of St. John’s is the perfect way for us to feature smaller ensembles from the orchestra. We hope the audience will enjoy the variety of music on this program as well as the range and virtuosity of our world-class musicians. We have such a great orchestra right here in Fayetteville.”

All About That Brass showcases the brass and percussion sections of the FSO. The program features some of the very best repertoire written for brass and percussion, according to the FSO website.

Larry Wells became involved with FSO upon his arrival at Methodist University in the Fall of 2006.

“The conductor of the FSO at that time, Fouad Fakhouri, literally saw me in the hallway carrying my trumpet,” Wells said. “‘Ok...play something’ he said. I stopped and rattled off several orchestral excerpts. ‘Ok...you're in!’ was his response. I've been playing with FSO ever since.”

“My background is a lot to digest,” Wells said. “I have three college degrees and have been teaching for over 20 years. I've also been playing in various orchestras for roughly 30 years. Additionally, I used to build custom trumpets for the D.G. Monette Corp. On top of all that, I was the GM of a large youth orchestra in Portland, Oregon. That experience has helped me here in that I am the music director of the Fayetteville Symphony Youth Orchestra.”

The concert on Nov. 20 is special because it features many works for brass spanning over 400 years of history. The antiphonal pieces of Gabrieli, circa 1600 A.D., were written for musicians at St. Mark’s Cathedral in Venice, Italy. No less amazing are the pieces were written by contemporary composers like Eric Ewazen. Other selected pieces include Samuel Barber’s Mutations from Bach, Dmitri Shostakovich’s Concertino, Op. 94 and Henri Tomasi’s Fanfare Liturgiques.

“As for the audience,” Wells said, “I first hope that they enjoy an evening of amazing music in an amazing place. I also hope they leave a bit more enlightened regarding the rich history of brass playing. Finally, I hope they can see the joy that this music brings to the musicians themselves. We have a very close-knit group of brass musicians in the FSO. These types of events are a pleasure to produce. I'm very excited to hear the final result.”

All About That Brass will take place Saturday, Nov. 20 at 7:30 p.m. at St. John’s Episcopal Church. The total concert run time is an hour and 15 minutes.

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