Redtail

Delighted to report that the Philadelphia Brass has been playing the newest version of Red-tail and Hummingbird, just finishing up two festivals where they featured it. On June 29th they played it at the Sam Maitin Summer Chamber Music Festival in Cape May, N.J., and on July 6th, at the Wildflower Music Festival in the Poconos, White Mills, Pa.

The guys couldn’t decide between the beach or the mountains, so they chose both!

In a short time Red-tail is now up to five versions: Renaissance sextet, brass quintet + bassoon, brass sextet (2 horns), brass sextet (2 trombones), and brass quintet. That’s right, after the Piffaro/Orchestra 2001 premieres, which included players from the Philadelphia Brass, they asked if it’d be possible to make a quintet version. While I was speaking the words “Of course!” my mind was saying “No. No. No. No. No.”

But I worked it out, looking at it as an orchestration challenge, which was a neat trick because it was originally a piece for three duos. Then I made a lower-key version, so that the D trumpets wouldn’t be necessary to haul along on tour. That was easily done, with just a few minor changes to some notes for trumpets and others.

Oh man, that makes six versions, doesn’t it.

Well, this page has more information about the story behind the title, and this page begins a 4-part series I wrote in the Broad Street Review about the process of composing the work.

Thank you, Brian Kuszyk and the Philadelphia Brass!