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The Brass Junkies

The Brass Junkies, hosted by former Boston Brass tuba player Andrew Hitz and a rotating cast of characters, features interviews with the best and brightest brass players in the world. Subject matter includes everything from the serious to the ridiculous, just like the music business.
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Now displaying: October, 2019
Oct 25, 2019

TBJ123: Sam Pilafian Tribute

On October 25, 2019, Sam Pilafian would have turned 70. To mark this special occasion we decided to reach out to some of Sam's best friends to ask for stories, thoughts, reflections, and impressions. Mark Gould, Marty Hackleman, Jose Sibaja, Michael Sachs, JD Shaw, Patrick Sheridan, and Jose Sibaja shared stories ranging from hilarious to moving and we hope you find it as therapeutic as we have.

Happy Birthday, Sam!

#yeahman

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We are happy to announce the next offering from Pedal Note Media: The Brass Legacy Project! Each season will feature stories from people around the music business about a different brass legend.

Who better to feature in Season One of the Brass Legacy Project than Sam Pilafian!

Sign up for the Brass Junkies newsletter and be the first to learn about when Season One will launch. Yeah man!

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Want to help the show? Here are some ways:

Expertly produced by Will Houchin with love, care, and enthusiasm.

Oct 15, 2019

TBJ122: Shelagh Abate on playing horn on Broadway, meeting Sting and the importance of networking. She gives us a great overview of life in a Broadway pit and what it takes to get (and stay) there.

From her bio:

SHELAGH ABATE is unquestionably one of New York’s most sought-after musicians. Shelagh’s love for the horn is almost as old as her love for music itself. Known for her simultaneously warm and assertive sound, her versatility and musical intuition has earned her a place in the lexicon of NYC’s busiest performers.

Shelagh has opened more than one dozen Broadway productions. Among them are Mary PoppinsA Gentleman’s Guide to Love and MurderSouth PacificHoneymoon in VegasEvitaFiddler on the Roof, Anastasia, and most currently Disney’s Frozen. Since arriving in New York in 2006, she has performed regularly with The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, The Mostly Mozart Festival, The American Ballet Theater, The American Symphony Orchestra, The Opera Orchestra of New York, is third horn with the Greenwich Symphony Orchestra and has been principal horn of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra under the artistic direction of Jaime Laredo since 1999. During the course of her career, she has been conducted by some of the great musicians of our time; Seiji Ozawa, Simon Rattle, Andre Previn, James Conlon, Gunther Schuller, James DePriest, Robert Spano, Carl St. Clair, John Williams, Marin Alsop, Jaime Laredo, Keith Lockhart, and Placido Domingo, to name a few.

Shelagh has established fluency in the commercial realm as well as the classical, having performed as part of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, Michel Legrand, the ensembles of Earl McDonald, Gary Morgan, Jamie Baum, John Allmark, John Vanore and Greg Hopkins. Shelagh has recorded, performed live in concert, as well as on televised events with Sting, The Who, Tony Bennett, Rufus Wainwright, Lady Gaga, Barry Manilow, Joni Mitchell, Trey Anastasio, Club d’Elf, Josh Groban, Brian Wilson, Linda Ronstadt, and most recently with the 2019 Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall.

Chamber music has been at the very core of Shelagh’s success as a musician. A winner of the Coleman Competition (2000), and a founding member of the award-winning Triton Brass (Fischoff, Lyon & Concert Artist’s Guild, 2005), Shelagh has collaborated with her world-class and longtime colleagues in order to achieve what is only artistically possible through such an intimate medium. Together they have shared their gifts with many thousands of others through live performances, recordings, and through education. Shelagh will be returning as faculty with Triton Brass to the Boston University Tanglewood Institute for their 2019 season. She also served as faculty for more than a decade with the renown Atlantic Brass Quintet International Summer Seminar.  Through these summer programs, Shelagh is proud to have influenced, shaped and enriched the lives of many dozens of tomorrow’s musicians. Shelagh is an Artist in Residence at Boston College, and The Boston Conservatory of Music where she has performed and conducted clinics and masterclasses on a regular basis since 2003.

Shelagh’s early musical influences include extensive study with the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Richard Sebring, Toronto Symphony’s principal horn Neil Deland, and renowned pedagogue and performer Laura Klock. She has been a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center and with The National Repertory Orchestra. Shelagh holds a B.A. from Boston College, an M.M. from The University of Massachusetts at Amherst where she was a recipient of the Howard W. Lebow Scholarship, and an Artist Diploma from The New England Conservatory of Music, where she was a Walkenier Scholar. Shelagh is proud to be a Stephens Horns artist, playing one of the very first horns handcrafted by Stephen Shires https://www.stephenshorns.com.  

In this fun and lively discussion, we cover:

  • In the Lexicon!
  • Fun with pronunciations
  • Amhad Rashad
  • Baseball cards
  • Erasers and jewelry
  • Going to school with Andy Bove
  • Trent Austin's bio writer
  • Playing on Broadway eight times a week
  • Playing Disney's Frozen
  • Name-dropping 
  • How playing on Broadway works
  • Dealing with repetition
  • How the sub pool works and how to get started as a player
  • Dormant subs
  • Networking
  • The impact of social media on networking
  • Jeff Nelsen
  • Be nice
  • Pit orchestra size and the state of the industry
  • Horn job pool on Broadway
  • Horn writing rant
  • Horn: The Cornstarch of the Orchestra
  • Triton Brass
  • Working with Sam Pilafian
  • Playing with famous people from Trey Anastasio to Barry Manilow and Sting
  • Being married to Tony Kadleck
  • Facebrace

LINKS:

Want to help the show? Here are some ways:

Expertly produced by Will Houchin with love, care, and enthusiasm.

Oct 1, 2019

***We just launched a brand new Brass Junkies newsletter! It will change your life. Like, it's life-changing! Subscribe today to stay in the loop on all things Brass Junkies!***

Sign up by 10/31 for a chance for you and a friend to chat with The Brass Junkies!

TBJ121: Trumpeter Wayne du Maine on working with Bernstein and Prince, but not at the same time. He is one of the busiest and most successful musicians working today and he shares how he balances it all with a smile on his face.

From his bio:

A native of St. Louis, Wayne J. du Maine currently performs with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, New York City Opera, Rodney Mack Philadelphia Big Brass, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and with contemporary music ensembles such as Speculum Musicae, Sospeso, and ST-X Xenakis. Mr. du Maine is a member of the Manhattan Brass and with Mercury and the Brooklyn Philharmonic Brass Quintets, he is dedicated to performing and introducing live music to thousands of school children in the NYC area, NJ and PA. Wayne has worked with a broad spectrum of artists ranging from Leonard Bernstein and Leonard Slatkin to Hank Jones, Wynton and Branford Marsalis, Patti Lupone and Audra MacDonald. He has been a soloist with the orchestras of St. Louis, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh. He can be heard on recordings with the New York Philharmonic, Met Opera Orchestra, numerous commercials, motion pictures and with Prince on his New Power Soul recording.

Mr. du Maine is on the faculty of Columbia and Princeton Universities as well as Bar Harbor Brass Week. At the Juilliard School, Wayne teaches trumpet in the Music Advancement Program and serves as a teaching assistant in the Instrumental Music Program. He is also on the conducting faculty of the Elisabeth Morrow Summer Strings and now is Music Director of the Concert Band and Jazz Ensemble at the Elisabeth Morrow School. Recently, Wayne made his Brooklyn Philharmonic conducting debut to critical acclaim and will make his Westchester Philharmonic debut in Spring, 2011.

Mr. du Maine has performed at music festivals in Aspen, Spoleto, Tanglewood, Vermont Mozart, Bowdoin, Marlboro, Berkshire Choral, and the Manchester (VT) Music Festival. Wayne just completed a two year run of Fiddler on the Roof where he was associate conductor. He is currently a member of the show How The Grinch Stole Christmas and has served as associate conductor at the hit revival of South Pacific at Lincoln Center. Highlights of recent performances include the Boys Choir of Harlem, Take 6, Martha's Vineyard Chamber Music Society, Absolute Ensemble, soloist with the Cincinnati Symphony, Peter, Paul and Mary, and the rock band Jesus H. Christ, where he plays keyboards.

A member of two softball leagues in Central Park, Wayne resides in New Jersey with his wife, Sharon and daughter Sequoia.

In this fun and lively discussion, we cover:

  • Stanley Cup/St. Louis Blues
  • NYU brass program
  • Learning the ropes as an administrator
  • Recruiting and fundraising
  • Negotiating and the art of pricing
  • 1990 Tanglewood performance of Copland's Third Symphony under Bernstein
  • Conducting
  • Scotch and cigarettes
  • Prioritization and scheduling
  • Playing in the stage bands at The Met
  • Mark Gould
  • Portfolio career/freelancing
  • Looking 7-9 months ahead to manage uneven income
  • Playing on Broadway while still in school
  • The importance of sightreading
  • How he guides his students
  • Wayne du Maine's Beer Course With Trumpet
  • Recording with Prince

Links:

Want to help the show? Here are some ways:

Expertly produced by Will Houchin with love, care, and enthusiasm.

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