Summit Brass Finale Concert

The Summit Brass Finale concert is not to be missed! Featuring the finest brass musicians from across North America, and a mass brass ensemble finale piece, this concert is the epitome of glorious and exquisite brass sound. Join us as we celebrate the retirements of Daniel Perantoni and Thomas Bacon from the Summit Brass. We will also be collecting money for the Alan Hood Recovery Fund at this event.

While this event is free to attend, registration to attend is still required for entry. Reserve your general admission seat in advance to guarantee entry to this monumental event.

Seating is general admission, but there will be a special VIP seating section roped off for donors who give $250+ to the Al Hood Fund when registering to attend.

The Summit Brass is an ensemble of brass players drawn strictly from American symphony orchestras. It plays both original works and arrangements and consists of about 16 players, though the number can vary widely (from two players on up to full size and beyond) during performance, depending on the repertory. Guest artists, like pianists and percussionists, often join the group. The ensemble is made up of four players each on trumpet, trombone, and French horn and three on tuba and one on euphonium. The players regularly tour the U.S., Europe, Asia, and elsewhere and have made numerous recordings, all issued on their off-shoot enterprise Summit Records.

Their repertory is fairly broad, taking in arrangements of works by J.S. Bach, Handel, Frescobaldi, Mussorgsky, Holst, Ravel, Shostakovich, Barber, Copland, Bernstein, and many original works by Hindemith, Eric Ewazen, Anthony Plog, Gunther Schuller, and a host of others. They also perform Broadway, jazz, and popular music selections.

The Summit Brass was formed in 1985 by trumpeter David Hickman, then a member of the St. Louis Brass Quintet. With the assistance of other members of the ensemble he was able to attract a number of the finest brass players from symphony orchestras across the U.S., including from those in New York, Boston, Chicago, and Los Angeles .By the late '80s the group had become internationally known from its many highly acclaimed concert tours.

It formed the label Summit Records around this time. Its first effort, Toccata and Fugue, featuring arrangements of works by J.S. Bach, Frescobaldi, and other Baroque composers, was issued in January 1994.The group was also regularly presenting works written for them, such as the Henri Lazarof Summit Concertante, which it premiered in 1996 and included on the CD Spirits of Fire, the following year. By the early years of the new century the ensemble, widely considered by then among the finest large brass ensembles in the world, had made numerous concert broadcasts on radio and television. The group also began taking part in the activities of the Rafael Mendez Brass Institute, a yearly seminar on brass playing that features performances and instruction on brass playing.

Joseph Parisi is a Professor at the University of Missouri Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance where he serves as wind ensemble director and chair of music education. Parisi is also the principal conductor of Fountain City Brass Band. Since receiving the invitation to become musical director and conductor in fall 2006, the group has been recognized as one of the world’s top brass bands, with ten winning performances at the North American Brass Band Championships and the US Open Brass Band Championship. Parisi has been nominated numerous times for Brass Band Conductor of the Year and received the winning conductor award at the 2009 Scottish Open where Fountain City was the first American band to win an international competition. His work with Fountain City Brass Band can be heard on several recordings, including Celebration, Over the Rainbow, and Project Blue Christmas.

If you are familiar with jazz music in Denver, you probably know Alan Hood. Dividing his career between performing and teaching full time (since 1999) at the University of Denver's Lamont School of Music as Professor of Trumpet, Al has coached Lamont Chamber Ensembles, taught Applied Trumpet & Pedagogy and a course on jazz trumpeter Clifford Brown. He served as a faculty member (since 2007) of the annual esteemed Rafael Méndez Brass Institute featuring the world-renowned Summit Brass. As a freelance trumpeter he continuously performed and recorded in and beyond the Colorado region with the Denver Brass, Aries Brass Quintet, the Ken Walker Jazz Sextet, the Peter Sommer Septet and the H2 Big Band and Jazztet.

On a snowy morning in January, Al was on his way to teach at the Lamont School of Music when he slipped on an icy sidewalk, landing on his back and causing severe damage to his spine. He was immediately paralyzed from the neck down. He has had multiple surgeries, with more potentially needed in the future. He has spent months making great progress at Swedish Hospital then at Craig Rehabilitation Hospital.

Despite the miraculous progress he has made so far, Al’s recovery will be long and expensive. Donations to the Al Hood Recovery Fund are being processed by the Denver Brass. The Denver Brass, Inc. is a registered 501c3 non-profit, FEIN 84-0945046. Your gift of any amount will be completely tax deductible.

For updates on Al’s Recovery, visit https://denverbrass.org/alan-hood-updates or connect on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/alanhoodsupportgroup.

Thank you to the musicians and event partners who are making this performance possible!

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Newman Center for the Performing Arts, 2344 East Iliff Avenue, Denver, United States