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Thursday, August 30, 2007
Utah Premier Brass

American Fork's summer concert series ends impressively.


As I meant to mention sooner, last Monday evening was the final concert in American Fork's summer series of Monday evening concerts in the park -- at the city's amphitheater, to be precise. The series had its sparkling moments last year, its first year, and was much improved this year. I attended all or part of several concerts, as you may have read here at the blog. Last evening, about 275 others attended, too, which is a decent audience.

The Rodebacks arrived very late for this last concert, featuring the Utah Premier Brass. But others' misfortune was our good fortune; the UPB were just announcing their first piece as we arrived. Apparently, the warmup act went far beyond its allotted time. The UPB shortened its program a little, but kindly played until it was too dark to see their music.

This is a very polished and professional ensemble of about 30 players, in the tradition of the British brass band. There are two percussionists and more than two dozen brass players. They played a well-programmed concert with a wide variety of works for brass band, including Leroy Anderson's "Bugler's Holiday" (faster and cleaner than I ever played it, to be sure) and the best "Stars and Stripes Forever" I've heard this year. For the final concert in a series, you just can't do much better than the Utah Premier Brass.

They're beginning a concert series of their own in a few weeks in Provo. The details are not yet at their web site, but there you can invite them to send you occasional e-mail messages about their upcoming concerts.


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