Sitka’s annual Holiday Brass concert returns this Friday, with a line-up of local and nationally recognized musicians. Sitka Fine Arts Camp director Roger Schmidt said that the concert, which was first held in 2008 as a one-off event, has now become an “unstoppable tradition.”
“A concert like this is a chance to all be together and just stop all the hectic, sort of mundane goings-on,” Schmidt said. “You have all these things you have to do, and errands, and what-have-you, and you just go and you hear this music and it is so powerful in terms of its ability to bring us to a moment.”
The concert will feature a combination of classical pieces and holiday tunes performed by a brass orchestra. Vocalists Rhiannon Guevin, Mina Brooks-Schmidt, and Karen Neal will also perform.
Schmidt said that he chooses the pieces for performance, but he always checks with the trumpet section before making it official.
“I’ll show it to our trumpets before I finalize it,” he said. “They’re usually the ones that, when it all comes down to it, are playing the highest, fastest, most technical parts of the program.”
The Holiday Brass Concert is 7 p.m. Friday, December 22 (12-22-23) at the Sitka Performing Arts Center. Tickets are available online at fineartscamp.org.
