For a big golden sound, nothing beats the Brass Band of Battle Creek.
Their next concert is 7:30 p.m. May 16 at the W.K. Kellogg Auditorium.
What makes the band special? First off, it’s the musicians. Executive Director Jerry Rose calls it an all-star band. It’s truly an international cast, with players coming not only from Canada, but also Taiwan and Venezuela.
It’s further unusual to find a brass band in a place like Battle Creek. Their origins are in the United Kingdom.
During the Industrial Era, towns would pop up around factories and mines, and the workers would need things to do in their off time. So factories would put together brass bands, since the valved instruments were easy to use with hands roughened from work.
Unlike an orchestra, the entire band is brass and percussion. There’s the fun-to-say fluegelhorn, the tenor horn that looks like a tiny tuba replaces the French horn and cornets instead of trumpets for a mellower sound.
Two podiatrists from Marshall, Jim and Bill Gray, heard a brass band in the late eighties and were so enamored of the music that they brought the idea home.
In 1991, the band began playing at W.K. Kellogg Auditorium. By then, the Gray brothers had been asking big names to come and play. Rose said it created an ascending spiral of quality.
Now players like Rex Richardson, known as “trumpet royalty,” think of the Brass Band of Battle Creek as a family.
“It’s a sound you really have to hear live to understand the power of it,” Rose said.
This is an important concert for the band, because it’s their last chance to get together before going to play on Jeju Island in South Korea. They’ll be playing three sold-out concerts, one of them right by the ocean.
Besides the spring concert, another chance to hear the band is during the holiday season. This year, it’s on Dec. 5.
If you have kids who play brass and percussion, the band also hosts summer camps for middle and high school students.
