NEC Brass Bash + Chris Gekker

Boston Symphony Orchestra brass teachers and their students join forces for NEC's annual brass extravaganza!

Directed by the Chair of NEC's Brass & Percussion department, James Markey, Brass Bash brings together every brass student for large ensemble and chamber performances, conducted by NEC brass faculty members. 

This year's Bash features renowned trumpet soloist and professor, Chris Gekker. Chris Gekker is Distinguished University Professor of Trumpet at the University of  Maryland School of Music. He has been featured as soloist at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. After performances of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and Brandenburg Concerto no. 2 at Carnegie Hall, the New York Times praised his “bright virtuosity” and described his playing as “clear toned and pitch perfect.” Chris appears as soloist on more than thirty recordings and on more than one hundred chamber music, orchestral, and jazz recordings. CD Review called his recording of Copland’s Quiet City “a model of quiet perfection” and in an overview of several solo recordings Grammophone Magazine described his performances as “astonishingly poised.” Of his recording of Eric Ewazen’s Sonata for Trumpet and Piano American Record Guide states “Ewazen writes that he had Gekker’s sound in his mind when he wrote the Sonata, and I can understand why. It is round, soft edged, and gorgeous at soft dynamic levels, and always full and well controlled at fortissimo.” Chris is one of the featured artists on Deutsche Grammophon’s 2005 compilation “Masters of the Trumpet.”

The tradition continues with a concluding performance of Richard Strauss’s Feierlicher Einzug der Ritter des Johanniter-Ordens, bringing to the stage every member of the NEC Brass department.