FESTIVE BRASS: REINDEER GAMES
Where: Farquhar Auditorium, University of Victoria
When: Thursday, Dec. 21, 7:30 p.m.
Tickets: $41.75 from tickets.uvic.ca
Festive Brass was created more than 25 years ago for a run of engagements at The Butchart Gardens — Christmas concerts, specifically.
The group has continued its busy seasonal schedule for the better part of two decades, playing well-known favourites every half hour from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the popular landmark. The heavy workload — Festive Brass performs Dec. 1 through Jan. 6 this season — was made even busier by the efforts of trumpeter Stevan Paranosic, who took over as leader of the project shortly before the pandemic.
Paranosic, principal trumpet of the Vancouver Island Symphony, saw great promise with the quartet, whose line-up varies, depending on which one of the six core members is available. He now puts the organization on the road for several weekends in December, in addition to its duties at The Butchart Gardens. Several versions of Festive Brass exist, including a quintet that plays on the streets of Sidney.
“Last year, when we toured, we were 12 members,” Paranosic said. “It’s always fluctuating.”
The core line-up includes Paranosic, fellow trumpetists David Flello and Bruce Hurn, trombonist Nick La Riviere, bass trombonist Robert Fraser, and drummer Jonathan Eng, Nick Mintenko (bass) and Nico Rhodes (piano) were added to the line-up for Festive Brass: Reindeer Games, a six-date Vancouver Island tour that wraps tonight at the University of Victoria’s Farquhar Auditorium.
The concert will include a mixture of traditional carols and popular seasonal songs, Paranosic said. “There’s so much to choose from. I think there’s certain things that we always have to hit on, the tried-and-true traditionals like Hark! The Herald Angels Sing and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. But we put our own spin on them.”
The latter morphs into God Rest Ye Funky Gentlemen, and Paranosic said Festive Brass adds a gospel touch to Silent Night. “We’re always trying to put a little bit of twist on everything, even if it is a traditional carol.”
A portion of the program tackles what Paranosic calls “the cartoon classics,” including jazz material by Vince Guraldi from A Charlie Brown Christmas and songs popularized in the enduring stop-motion Rankin/Bass productions of the 1960s, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, and Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town.
Rhodes takes the concert’s only vocal turn in Festive Brass history during You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch, the Boris Karloff standout from 1966’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas TV special.
“These arrangements we’re playing are pretty specialized to this tour — they’re new as of this year,” Paranosic said. “The [songbook] we have that we play up at The Butchart Gardens has been around for for so many years, so we’ve been slowly adding repertoire. Twenty-five years ago or so it just kind of started with traditional carols, and then it’s branched off into playing everything imaginable up there. And a lot of that just grew from taking requests.”
Many concerts staged during the Christmas season include a program with lyrics, so audience members can sing along. Paranosic decided against one for this tour; it wouldn’t have been necessary, he said. “I think the audience swill recognize every one of these. I barely have to announce them, because everybody knows these songs and knows them so well.”
Festive Brass paired up with a local community choir or professional choir at each stop on the current tour. School District 63 Secondary Choirs appeared Dec. 14 at the Mary Winspear Centre in Sidney, while Village Voices of Qualicum Beach joined Dec. 15 at ADSS Thatre in Port Alberni and Dec. 16 at Knox United Church in Parksville. Others stops saw the North Island Choral Society (Dec. 17 at St. George’s United Church in Courtenay) and the Cowichan Vocal Collective (Dec. 19 at the Cowichan Arts Centre in Duncan) join in on some perennial favourites.
An assembly of the Victoria Choral Society’s 120 members is scheduled to appear tonight in Victoria, Paranosic said.
“They’re so good, and such a staple in the community. We just we love the fact that, everywhere we go, we can pair up with these wonderful singers who are the perfect foil to our music. They just add that extra little bit.”
At this time of year, every little bit counts.
