Chamber music, or music performed by a small ensemble, takes on many forms. The most dynamic, exciting and rewarding for a brass player (and its audience) has got to be the Brass Quintet, consisting of two trumpets, a horn, trombone, and tuba. This instrumentation can be both delicate and bombastic. You may hear a trumpet switch to a piccolo trumpet, cornet, or fluegel horn, providing a much different tone color. The horn player may pick up an alto horn, or the trombone or tuba player may perform on a baritone horn, altering the tone quality for special effects. Brass music has its roots deep in religious celebration, and much of today’s repertoire for the Quintet comes from liturgical sources. The increasingly popular Brass Quintet is moving in many directions, however, with arrangements of Classical, Popular, Ragtime, Dixie, Jazz, and Contemporary compositions joining the repertoire. You haven’t really heard it until you’ve heard it played by a Brass Quintet!