Lowbrass Concert Review

Low Brass Concert Review Jason Crews It’s difficult to make any attempt at reviewing Pat’s recital. You could summarize his entire performance in one word, amazing, but a single word can hardly do it justice because his performance was … amazing. In addition to his playing Pat has a great stage presence and easily entertains his audience with his wit between pieces, and even enhances his performance with the occasional funny gesture solemn look. His theme was something old and something new allowing him to choose a wide variety of music and have each piece showcase different aspect of Pat’s amazing skill, and at the same time keeping the audience on their edge of their seat. Pat played four pieces totaling about two hours. The first piece was an oboe concerto adapted to tuba, followed by Hyden’s cello concerto adapted for tuba by Pat, then a more modern tuba piece, Concerto for Tuba by Martin Ellerby featuring, according to Pat, Steven Spielberg’s E.T.’s flight across the moon, and ending with Variations on a theme from Norma from Arbans’ method book. Each work displayed the amazing talent that Pat possesses. Perhaps the most impressive of which was the adapted cello piece. Concerto was considered lost for good until the manuscript parts were discovered in Prague by a librarian. That’s why the piece still has an active international copyright hundreds of years after Haydn. Even in the slow movements in this work have a virtual torrent of notes, and it was easy to tell that Pat did not miss any. Another impressive piece was the modern tuba work Pat’s performance of Concerto for Tuba by Martin Ellerby. This was the only work Pat played that was one continuous movement. It begins with a slow and

sad opening, then into the faster section featuring E.T.’s appearance. While this piece may not have as many notes as many of the others it no less impressive. Pat exemplifies the most beautiful tone a tuba can produce; a tone that most instrumentalists can only dream. The first encore was Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumble Bee which was written for his opera The Tale of Tsar Saltan. Pat’s performance of this piece was no less stunning than the entire recital, and it’s easy to see why it has become one of his signature pieces. It’s not the range or the tone of the piece that makes Pat’s performance so impressive, it’s the shear speed of the notes he throws at the audience that left almost every audience member’s mouth hanging open. Te second encore was Pat’s impressions of various other instruments through his tuba. The two most memorable of which was Pat’s duets with himself, and his impression of a guitar player. The effects he produced by singing into the horn and playing at the same time were interesting and entertaining to say the least. It turned out to be a hilarious ending to a wonderful recital.