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I play in a community-based large brass ensemble and it performs at a high degree of musicality by community-band standards. Instrumentation is as follows: 5 tpt, 5 trb, 4 horns, 2 euph, 2 tuba, percussion.
The problem is that there is precious little good repertoire available for that large of a group. We use some of Mike Allen's excellent Boulder Brass stuff, but even that is written for a smaller instrumentation than ours. My question is--does anyone else out there in tuba-land play in such a group, and where do you find your music? Also, if any aspiring composers would like to have their music played, please feel free to contact me! If you have anything you really like for this type of brass ensemble and would like to share it, I am sure we have something in our 30-year old library that we might use to return the favor.We have a lot of "standard" style music that our players prefer and our audience demands; most so-called "modern" stuff just doesn't go over very well.
We have 2 members who write some fine stuff, as well as friends of the group who also write great arrangements, but we always need more, fresher, pieces.
TIA,
Scottw

Try some of the pieces that the Summit Brass plays. Sure, they've recorded some crazy-hard works, but I bet a couple are playable by mere mortals. I think they have about your instrumentation, too.

THE TUBA wrote:Try some of the pieces that the Summit Brass plays. Sure, they've recorded some crazy-hard works, but I bet a couple are playable by mere mortals. I think they have about your instrumentation, too.

Yes, we have tried their stuff, but as you say, "crazy hard", at least what we got.
Another problem that is a big one is that there is almost nowhere you can go to look at the score or hear a full recording BEFORE you commit big bucks to an arrangement/composition that is not playable. I respect the fact that the composer is wary of getting his work misappropriated and not getting paid, but there must be a better way.

Your line-up holds great potentials for writing, as it contains 2 quintets and 2 quartets. However it is not a standard ensemble type, which diminishes the chances for finding commercial editions.

The closest coming to my mind is the stuff for symphonic brass ensemble, basically the orchestral brass with a euphonium added. The only piece on top of my memory is Rautavara’s (?) Requiem which was modern some 40 years ago.

Parts of my musicology studies were about writing for big-band, which makes me see some potentials for a popular repertory with not much change beyond the addition of a pianist and/or a guitar player, both of which could do the bulk of the improvised solos, if none of the brasses are jazz soloists.

The trumpet and trombone sections would easily find parts, especially if you go for the settings with 5 players in each section. Doublings would be minimal at any rate.

The contrabass player could read the bass line octave down, or make his own line like any bass player.

The euphs could cover the tenor sax parts reading treble clef. The bass tubist could cover the baritone sax part doing the reverse Eb-tuba reading trick.

Eb is a very common horn transposition, so the horn players could cover the alto sax parts. They would double, but then the sax parts often are more work intensive than horn players like.

If the workload between the tubists is perceived uneven (I wouldn’t like the continuous playing of a jazz bassist), then the bass tuba may take over the bass line during some of the solo sections, where the octave of the bass line is less significant.

My free-download-of-music project holds a very few arrangements, that might be adaptable with very little modification. Some of the church related stuff would benefit greatly from your large ensemble sound, even if the numbers of independent parts are down to four. You may e-mail me via TubeNet. This of course also goes for board members with smaller ensembles or with brass bands.

Klaus Smedegaard Bjerre