Gargoyle Ensemble to Perform Free Concert Oct. 28 in Brookfield

The Chicago Gargoyle Brass and Organ Ensemble will lead listeners on aural adventures through space, time, and fantasy at its Imaginary Journeys concert, free and open to the public, at 4 p.m. on Sunday, October 28, at Brookfield Congregational Church, 16350 Gebhardt Rd., Brookfield. For information, call (262) 786-4155 or visit www.brookcc.org or gargoylebrass.com.

The professional ensemble of brass quintet and pipe organ, with percussion, will perform the Milwaukee-area premieres of new works and arrangements it recently commissioned for its novel array of instruments.

The concert’s namesake work, Imaginary Journeys, was written for the ensemble by Chicago-area composer Mark Lathan. It takes listeners on a rocket-powered interstellar adventure, inspired by recent astronomical discoveries. “For this piece,” Lathan says, “I wanted to bring in some drama, somewhat in the manner of a film score.” Lathan earned a doctorate in music from the University of California at Los Angeles, where he received the Henry Mancini Award in Film Composition and studied film scoring with Jerry Goldsmith.

Another Milwaukee premiere is Craig Garner’s brass and organ arrangement of Igor Stravinsky’s ever-popular Suite from The Firebird, a ballet based on Russian fairy tales. “The audience will hear an all-time favorite orchestral work like it’s never been heard before,” says Rodney Holmes, founder and artistic director of the Chicago Gargoyle Brass and Organ Ensemble.

Concertgoers will hear the first local performances of Short Fuse for brass, organ, and percussion by Chris Reyman, a jazz performance specialist teaching at the University of Texas at El Paso. Holmes says, “This piece shows off a very different face of what a pipe organ and brass can do.”

Other first hearings include Garner’s two-part instrumental suite from English Baroque composer Henry Purcell’s Come Ye Sons of Art.

The concert’s journey into the Baroque era includes brass and organ arrangements of movements from J. S. Bach’s chorale cantata Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott, BWV 80.

The concert’s imaginative works include David Marlatt’s Earthscape, as well as pipe-organ versions of Clair de lune (“Moonlight”) by Claude Debussy and Louis Vierne.

Performers will include Madison-based organist Jared Stellmacher, an award-winning musician heard on the Chicago Gargoyle Brass and Organ Ensemble’s critically acclaimed 2015 debut CD Flourishes, Tales and Symphonies. He holds a master’s degree in music from Yale University.

Gargoyle ensemble players are trumpeters Lev Garbar and Andrew Hunter, horn player Amy Krueger, trombonist Ian Fitzwater, tuba player Jason Lyons, and percussionist Logan Fox. Conductor will be Jakob Noestvik.

Chicago Gargoyle Brass and Organ Ensemble

“The Chicago Gargoyle Brass and Organ Ensemble plays with warmth, elegance, and panache,” said U.S. music magazine Fanfare in a review of the ensemble’s debut CD. “[They] are perfect companions for the music lover in need of calming nourishment.”

The group takes its whimsical name from the stone figures atop gothic buildings at the University of Chicago, where the now-professional ensemble got its start in 1992 as a brass quintet of faculty and students. Under its founder and artistic director Rodney Holmes, it has evolved over the decades into an independent organization of classically trained musicians that focuses on commissioning and performing groundbreaking new works and arrangements for brass and pipe organ. More information at gargoylebrass.com.