Historic Brass Society
Founded in 1988, The Historic Brass Society (HBS) is an international music organization whose goal is to promote the exchange of serious ideas about the history and performance of brass instruments and music, ranging from Antiquity through the twentieth century.
Overview[]
The Society was created by participants in the annual Early Brass Festival, founded in 1985, in Amherst, Massachusetts. In a short time the Society grew in size and initiated an ambitious publishing program. Since 1989, it has produced an annual journal, the Historic Brass Society Journal and, from 1989 through 2005 it published the Historic Brass Society Newsletter which was then supplanted by more timely content presented on its multifaceted website, www.historicbrass.org. In addition, it publishes a series of books in conjunction with Pendragon Press, the Bucina book series. It also sponsors workshops, conferences, and symposia world-wide. The Historic Brass Society now has about 600 members from 25 countries.
Activities[]
The Society has become the principal forum for scholarly research in the field of historic brass instruments, their music, composers and performers. Because it draws its members from both the scholarly and performing communities, it often serves as a liaison between the early brass world and many organizations in other cultural and intellectual communities. The Society has participated in Congresses of the International Musicological Society since 1997 and has organized study sessions at annual conferences of the American Musicological Society. It has organized conferences in collaboration with the Galpin Society, American Musical Instrument Society, CIMCIM, and other organizations and has presented conferences at many distinguished institutions including Yale University, Oxford University, Oberlin College, Cité de la Musique (Paris), The Institute for Jazz Studies of Rutgers University, Edinburgh University, the Horniman Museum (London), the Royal College of Music (London), Indiana University, and Wake Forest University, to name a few. The Society's annual Early Brass Festival, held each summer at locations throughout the United States, offers formal lectures and performances as well as informal brass playing sessions for cornetti, natural trumpets, natural horns, sackbuts, serpents, and a wide range of 19th-century brass instruments.
Key Officials[]
Some key officials of the Historic Brass Society are President and Founder, Jeffrey Nussbaum, Journal Executive Editor Stewart Carter, Co-Editor Howard Weiner, Production Editors Benny Sluchin and Bryan Proksch and webmaster Steven Lundahl. The Society's Board of Directors also includes many leading scholars, and performers, including Keith Polk, Trevor Herbert, Jeffrey Snedeker, Charlotte Leonard, James Miller, and Tom Reicher. The members are scholars, teachers, professional performers, instrument collectors, museum curators, and enthusiastic amateurs.
Publications[]
The Historic Brass Society Journal is a scholarly refereed publication that has published articles ranging from Antiquity through to the twentieth century and early jazz, written by leading authorities, including Don Smithers, Edward H. Tarr, Reine Dahlqvist, Herbert Heyde, Keith Polk, Renato Meucci, Trevor Herbert, and many others. The Newsletter offers the Society's members a wide range of less formal material, including interviews with performers, makers, collectors, and brass teachers. From 1989 to 2005, the HBS published a newsletter, The Historic Brass Society Newsletter. Since then, news, articles and reviews have appeared on the HBS website. These include articles on instrument collections and an ongoing series on early brass instrument makers and their work, as well as reviews of CDs, music, and books, and the extensive News of the Field section, as well as real-time discussion groups.
External links[]
- Brass instrument organizations