Concert Review

Classical Music at UTEP

Alfredo Gonzalez

The day's temperature was doing great and it was in a perfect conditions to sit down and listen to some great historical Classical pieces. Although the time of the concert was a little late and I was almost out of energy to fully appreciate the performance, I got the best out of this magnificent performance. The concert as I like to name was the continuation from last weekend concert. Both concert were called "El Paso's Summer Music Festival which took place at UTEP's Fox Fine Arts Recital Hall. This concert although it had a small size of audience, it had a great ambience to fully enjoy this great performance offered by stupendous musicians. This concert, as well as the one last week was in honor of J.O. Stewart jr. and Marlene Stewart, who have contributed generously to the Arts in El Paso. This concert was a little different from the one last week; it only presented a great selection of brass instruments.

The group of musicians performed a lot of classical pieces and in my opinion they were not that diatonic, because they lacked some kind of piano, violin or something harmonious as an accompaniment. The concert was great as well as the performance of the members of Quintessential Brass. A little background of the members of the Quintessential Brass Group, Members of the brass section of the El Paso Symphony Orchestra who were seeking a chamber music outlet for their own enjoyment formed Quintessential Brass in 1983. Since that time, Quintessential Brass has become one of El Paso's busiest, and longest operating, chamber ensembles. As a result of its annual participation in the Bruce Nehring Christmas Concerts, both at the Union Depot and at Loretto Chapel, solo ensemble concerts, adjunct concerts for the El Paso Symphony, and work with area churches, tens of thousands of people in the El Paso area have come under the spell of Quintessential Brass' charm.

The programs started with a work from Johann Pezel's "Hora Decima," both pieces of music were sonatas called, Sonata 35 and Sonata 36. Great piece of work as well as performance, but in my opinion it lacked some kind of sweet accompaniment. Which they did not lasted long. The next piece of classical music was called "Canzona Bergamasca." Honestly I had a hard time recognizing which piece was it, all pieces