Summer 2016

Summer 2016

No BS! Brass tour dates

No BS! Brass summer 2015

No BS! Brass summer tour dates.

Winter 2014

No BS! Brass is hard at work on a new album and will be doing some touring in November. Check the calendar for dates.

No BS! Hits the road this summer

No BS! Will be traveling down south, up north, and upper norther this summer, including hits in Birmingham, AL, New York and Canada. Check the calendar for details!

Ombak at Balliceaux 1/15

Ombak returns to Balliceaux to kick of its monthly residency on Wednesday 1/15 at 9:30 pm.

Bryan Hooten: trombone
JC Kuhl: woodwinds
Trey Pollard: guitar
Cameron Ralston: bass
Brian Jones: drums

Balliceaux
203 N. Lombardy St.
Richmond, VA

9:30 pm
Free
21+

Summer 2013

No BS! Brass just dropped its fourth studio album, RVA All Day, here in Richmond with a pair of shows at Balliceaux and The Camel and will be traveling to DC for an NPR Tiny Desk Concert on Thursday, May 23rd. On Friday, May 24th, we’ll be headlining Friday Cheers on Brown’s Island with our friends, Murphy’s Kids and Former Champions. On May 26th, Fight the Big Bull comes out of hibernation to reprise its Sounds of the South project at the Sydney Opera House with Justin Vernon, Megafaun. No BS! Brass hits the road for a tour of the Northeast (more info to follow soon) in late June. In early July, I’ll be spending a few days in Montreal with my good friend Rachel Therrien and the Jazz Composers Series. More No BS! dates in July culminate in an August 8th performance at Lincoln Center Out of Doors in NYC! Stay in touch, y’all!

Spring 2013

Happy New Year, y’all! 2013 is shaping up to be an exciting year. No BS! Brass just wrapped up recording an EP of music by Charles Mingus.  You can expect release of that and our fourth full-length album and more goodness later this year. This Friday I’ll join some of my closest friends for RVA Solo Night at ForInstance Gallery and try out some new music for solo trombone. In March, I’ll be traveling to Doha, Qatar to take part in VCU’s Tasmeem Art and Design Conference where I’ll be collaborating with some stellar visual artists. In April I’ll be serving as one of two guest artists at the Mars Hill New Music Festival at Mars Hill College in Asheville, NC. The other guest artist is my good friend, Emily Hindrichs, an absolutely stunning coloratura soprano. I’ll be writing some new music for that meeting as well. There are exciting things in the works for Matthew E. White and Spacebomb but I can’t talk about all that just yet. Hope to see you around!

No BS! Brass Long Weekend

Thursday night, No BS! Brass returns to Balliceaux to host its monthly dance party. We’re fresh off a successful performance in NYC and taping for Planet Money on NPR so you can expect crushing beats and expert analysis. On Friday, we travel to Festy in Charlottesville, VA to hang with our friends at Devil’s Backbone Brewing. On Saturday and Sunday, we’ll be doing a live DVD taping at a top secret location. You can holler at me for tickets to the taping. See you on the scene!

Thursday, October 4
No BS! Brass
Balliceaux
203 N. Lombardy St. Richmond, VA
21+
Free
10pm

Friday, October 5th
No BS! Brass
The Festy
Nelson County, VA

Next up, NYC

Next Sunday, No BS! Brass will travel to NYC to play Rockwood Music Hall as part of Dave Douglas’ Festival of New Trumpet Music. We’ll be sharing the stage with the fantastic new music ensemble yMusic. I got to hear yMusic at last year’s MusicNow Festival in Cincinnati and they were fantastic. The show starts at 7 pm and you can acquire tickets right here.

Ligeti: Combat Evolved

I have played a lot of Halo. My friends from Birmingham, Alabama and I used to sit in the basement and shoot at each other for hours and hours and hours. I always thought the score to Halo was particularly well crafted and now I occasionally play the opening theme on piano for my Music Theory students to dictate (dorian mode, y’all!). However, it was not until a couple of years ago that I realized that this opening theme from seems to take it’s cue from one of my favorite pieces of art music, Ligeti’s Cello Sonata. First, check out the first eight notes of the Martin O’Donnell’s Halo theme:

Now, check out the first eight notes (after the double-stops) of the first movement of Ligeti’s Cello Sonata as played by Juan Mateo Revilla.

I report. You decide.