NEWS
CENTENARY COLLEGE OF LOUISIANA


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE(12/98)
Contact: Lynn Stewart, Centenary News Service, 318-869-5120 or 869-5709

Saint Louis Brass Quintet to Provide Evening of Music and More At Jan. 31 Performance in Centenary Friends of Music Series

Saint Louis Brass_________Brass Quintet

SHREVEPORT, LA--Dispelling the myth that its kind of music is aimed solely at classical music lovers, the Saint Louis Brass Quintet will present a program of nice variety when it appears at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, January 31 at Centenary College.

A part of the Friends of Music Series, the concert will be held in the auditorium of the Hurley School of Music. Tickets are $8 for adults and $4 for non-Centenary students. Centenary students, faculty and staff are admitted free.

Take two trumpets, one French horn, a trombone, and a tuba - put them in the hands of virtuoso performers - add some lighthearted demonstrations- and you have the Saint Louis Brass Quintet. The concert starts as any concert might, but as it moves along the music gets lighter and the Quintet presents the humorous demonstrations for which it is famous.

"We have a lot of fun with the audience, " trombonist Melvyn Jernigan told a reporter after a recent concert. "It starts off really kind of straight and then gets lighter as we go along," said Jernigan, a music educator who performed with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra in addition to his quintet role.

The program will feature American composers of both jazz and classical genre. The Quintet has commissioned two jazz-oriented arrangements -- "Dixieland Medley" and "The Seasons" - and will present them at this concert together with Anthony Plog's "Sketches for Brass Quintet."

Allan Dean has written many of the arrangements including some songs and dance music of Manuel deFalla.

Humorous demonstrations offered by the quintet have served to enhance their reputation as an extraordinary musical group. One such demonstration will focus on the history of the brass instruments all the way from the time of King Tut to the present, including the straight trombone and the French horn fashioned from a 12-foot section of garden hose.

In addition to Melvyn Jernigan, members of the quintet include trumpet soloists Allan Dean and Ray Sasaki, hornist Thomas Bacon and Daniel Perantoni, tuba.

The Quintet is now in its 25th year and has presented hundreds of concerts across the country. The musicians have been funded for touring by then Missouri Arts Council, the Illinois Arts Council, the Mid-America Arts Alliance, Arts Midwest and The National Endowment for the Arts.

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