Taking one last look at a glistening painting of England’s first zebra, Ken Tedeschi launched into “Sleigh Ride.”
Across from him, Barbara Hill joined in with her French horn, releasing a whole snowy scene on a flurry of notes: two Clydesdales high-stepping their way from a red country barn, ready to guide a wood-paneled sleigh as soon as it flew from the mouth of the tuba.
And then the whole quintet was off. As the remainder of the scene – a family, bundled in their warmest sweaters and winter boots, driving a sleigh –came together, the audience settled into a round of grins and giggles.
Lucy Gellman Photo
In a holiday season that has been particularly hard to get into, some classy brass has a way of making everything a little better. Friday afternoon, the New Haven Symphony Orchestra Brass Quintet performed at the Yale Center for British Art (YCBA), filling the library court with enough seasonal spirit to get New Haveners through at least Christmas Day and Channukah’s eighth night.
Organized by the city of New Haven, the NHSO, and the YCBA, the concert came at a fortuitous moment for both institutions. On the heels of finally learning to talk about Yale’s racially fraught past, the YCBA is about to embark on the second part of a multimillion dollar renovation. Meanwhile the NHSO is kicking off its winter season after a prodigiously busy fall. A final collaboration before the YCBA’s long winter’s nap seemed, to YCBA Director Amy Meyers, NHCO Director Elaine Carroll, and Mayor Toni Harp, the only fitting way to wrap up the year.
“Everyone in the city is keenly aware of how important it is to have a mayor who understands the role of higher education and the arts in creating a unique and vibrant city where people find joy in their lives as members of our community. Nowhere are those two institutions wedded as here,” said Carroll at the beginning of the event.
Julienne Richardson Photo
“I am delighted to be here … this setting couldn’t be more lovely. I don’t think any of us could be more lucky. It’s as if each of us is about to receive a present. And yet … none of this should really surprise any of us. New Haven continually distinguishes itself as the cultural center of this region,” added Mayor Harp.
Covering holiday favorites like “Joy to the World” and “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” as well as classical pieces like J.S. Bach’s Sleepers Wake, the quintet — Ken Tedeschi and Larry Gareau on trumpets, Barbara Hill on French horn, Scot Cranston on trombone, and Adam Crowe on tuba — embodied the best of classical brass, capturing the electric and the subtle, the muscled and the delicate, ending pieces with perfectly placed final notes.
If you have ever doubted that mesmerizing and tuba could be used in the same sentence, think again. In excerpts from Handel’s Messiah, Crowe’s entrances, at once breathy and strong, became reams of Christmas-colored, sweet-smelling velvet.
Hear the way Hill’s French horn lifts up the trumpet and makes friends with the trombone and tuba in “Sleigh Ride”? That low-bellied, joyous, and triumphant sound, shedding that crying tenor of the solo in “For No One” for something exultant and alive?
That’s largely because the quintet makes it their point to bring holiday cheer to New Haveners. Throughout Tedeschi urged audience members to neigh and stomp during the sleigh ride, and a few brave souls — ahem, Madam Mayor — joined the festivus fun.
“We are extremely grateful to the city of New Haven for bringing the New Haven Symphony Orchestra Holiday Brass to the center … we all benefit tremendously from the city’s generosity and commitment to the arts. The performance of the NHCO Brass Quintet this afternoon will be a wonderful way to close our semester,” said Meyers.
And to New Haveners present with open ears, it paid off. “Thank you for making this performance part of your celebration of the holidays in New Haven … we’re just delighted to bring music into such an inspiring place,” Carroll announced as the group geared up for another number. Mayor Harp’s brooch caught the light and glinted like a Christmas tree. She grinned, broadly.
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