Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, October 25, 1993 TAG: 9310260216
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By SETH WILLIAMSON SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Five males in their 20s and 30s, species "regular American guy," who look like they'd be more at home in the neighborhood pool hall than a concert hall.
They also happen to be possibly the finest brass ensemble in the world.
The Empire Brass, which will appear at Roanoke College's Olin Hall tonight at 8, is one of the biggest names in American classical music. The group's record label, Telarc, struck gold with a marketing strategy that emphasizes not only spectacular musicianship, but also youth, good looks and unthreatening casual attitude that invites even nonclassical listeners to sample the CDs.
"I'm almost afraid to say this, because I don't want it to go to his head, but Rolf Smedvig is just a really good-looking guy," said Vikki Rickman, the Radio Promotions Coordinator for Telarc International Corporation in Cleveland. First trumpet Smedvig is the leader of the group and the only remaining founding member.
"In fact, the whole group is a really good-looking, handsome bunch of young guys," said Rickman, who acknowledged that Telarc has taken advantage of this fact with CD covers that underscore the looks of the quintet in casual settings.
"With the photographs and the repertoire, we are sort of going for a younger angle than with the Canadians," Rickman said. The Canadian Brass (on the Phillips label) is the other major North American brass quintet.
The Canadian Brass is perceived by the record-buying public as the more venerable group, but Rolf Smedvig says both ensembles were founded in 1973. "I would say the Canadians are pioneers - their efforts really opened the door in a major way - but we've been here for just as long."
Smedvig credited the Canadian Brass with "bridging a huge gap from the classical music world into a more popular world." The Empire Brass went on to release a number of big-selling Broadway, jazz and pop CDs, in addition to the standard classical repertoire.
"The difference is that we rehearsed as a group for about five years before we even played a concert. In retrospect, I think that was exactly how to do it - all we were concerned with was just getting better, and it was a tremendous outlet for sheer enjoyment and practice," Smedvig said.
The quintet originally coalesced as students at the Tanglewood summer music festival in 1969. The late Leonard Bernstein invited Smedvig and two other members of the original quintet to play in the premiere of his "Mass." The Empire Brass then became the first brass ensemble to win the prestigious Naumberg Chamber Music Award in 1976.
Smedvig is possibly the most phenomenal young classical trumpeter of his generation. Born in Seattle to immigrant parents from Norway and Iceland, he was given his first instrument at age 4 and says he cannot recall a time when he was not a trumpet player. He studied with the legendary Rafael Mendez at age 8 and became the youngest member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the unprecedented age of 18.
He is noted among brass players for his warm, fat tone, spectacular range and precise articulation. Allen Bachelder, who is professor of trumpet at Virginia Tech and former principal trumpet with the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra, characterizes Smedvig as "a natural musician."
"He put out an album a few years ago called `Digital Telemann' that I listened to for many years, just a wonderful example of pure, beautiful sound, especially on the high trumpets," Bachelder said.
"When you hear [the Empire Brass] up close, at least for another musician, you can really sense it, a certain freedom in their playing that's really quite spectacular, a musical intelligence and a curiousity about all styles that's very attractive," Bachelder said.
Smedvig is not the only enfant terrible in the group. Horn player Eric Ruske, who sports a ponytail, was associate principal horn of the Cleveland Orchestra at age 20. Other players include second trumpet Jeffrey Curnow, R. Douglas Wright on trombone and Kenneth Amis on tuba. The Empires' popular veteran tuba player Sam Pilafian left the group in January to play jazz.
When the Empire Brass plays at Olin Hall tonight, it will have had two weeks to recuperate from its latest Japanese tour, where the group played to sold-out halls across the country. Concert tours with nightly performances are especially exhausting to brass players, whose lips take a pounding from the punishing classical arrangements.
"It's like being an athlete," Smedvig said. "Just last night, I was practicing an hour and a half of long tones. To me, it's just like the NFL. You come off a tour like that and you're beat up, you gotta go back to the basics: scales, articulation, just being very careful attacking a note at the very beginning."
The Empire Brass consciously takes advantage of its appeal to younger audiences by introducing them, as painlessly as possible, to a different musical world.
Smedvig is blunt about public-school music programs. "The music education system in America stinks. Most of what we're taught as young people has nothing to do with this great achievement of mankind called classical music - they're not being exposed to it in the right way.
"And classical music is just marketed in all the wrong way. Let's face it: When you go into a record store, classical music is way in the back bin. That aggravates me. Our audience around the world is pretty young, and I think we're doing something about this."
The group will also likely perform selections from its new compact disc, "Mozart for Brass," which Smedvig characterizes as "the most difficult record I've ever done. This one to me is like we broke the four-minute mile."
Smedvig and horn player Eric Ruske will be interviewed live on public radio station WVTF from 3:30 to 4 p.m. today.
The Empire Brass in concert tonight at 8 in Roanoke College's Olin Theater. 375-2333.
Keywords:
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by CNB