The Canadian Brass with Echo Brass and Eric Robertson, Organ

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Antiphonal Brass Music by Giovanni Gabrieli, Claudio Monteverdi and Samuel Scheidt

The Canadian Brass, called “the world’s leading brass ensemble” by the Washington Post, brings its trademark virtuosity and artistic passion to an album of stunning antiphonal brass music by Giovanni Gabrieli, Claudio Monteverdi and Samuel Scheidt, composers of the late Renaissance and early Baroque. Initially available through a limited release by ArkivMusic.com last October, Echo: Glory of Gabrieli is available everywhere on April 8, 2010 through E1 distribution.

Reviewing the recording, ClassicsToday.com raved: “If you're not completely hooked by the strikingly realistic antiphonal sound or the breathtakingly virtuosic playing in the first 30 seconds of this remarkable recording, then check your equipment ... a brighter-than-ever sheen, an even better-defined edge that leaves you with no words, just the impression that you're in the presence of superhuman musicianship.” Audiophile Audition agreed, calling Echo “a magnificent program of spatial Renaissance brass music." And, Roger Kaza, Principal Horn with the St. Louis Symphony comments, “I think I've been waiting my whole life to hear Gabrieli played that way...The Venetian master has finally had his day in court. Actually make that on the court: a slam-dunk.”

Giovanni Gabrieli, organist at the famous Saint Mark’s Basilica in Venice at the turn of the seventeenth century, was one of the first to compose music specifically for brass instruments and brass choirs. On Echo, recorded in Toronto’s Deer Park Church, Canadian Brass makes these works sound as fresh and entertaining as when they were first heard four hundred years ago.

Echo Brass expands the ensemble in works for brass octet and brass with organ. These members of the Canadian Brass family include Manon LeFrance and Joe Burgstaller, part of the trumpet “dream team” often performing with Canadian Brass on stage, Austin Hitchcock, horn, and organist and arranger Eric Robertson.

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