Metales M5, Monday, April 9, 2012, 7:30 PM

Mexico’s finest young brass quintet: 2 trumpets, French horn, trombone and tuba. Led by German ex-pat (Alexander Freund) on first trumpet. He lives and teaches about 100 miles west of Mexico City. The other members live in and around Mexico City.

Their programming is nicely balanced between classical pieces (played in costume) and lighter, “pops” tunes including a 007 segment (also in costume) and finishing off with some rousing Mexican folk tunes including a bull-fight scene, with 4’11” trombonist playing the part of the bull!

Alex does most of the talking with the audience but some of the others speak as well.

The costuming includes fancy European garb and big wigs for the classical tunes which include compositions by Bach, Mozart and Rimsky-Korsakov. Then the costumes change to black suits and hats and dark glasses as they perform the 007 segment, and end up with sombreros and a cape as the “bull” charges around the stage and the Mexican bullfight tunes draw whistles and shouts from the audience.

Other pieces that may be heard in the program include Barber’s Adagio, Gershwin’s Summertime, Star Wars Theme, High Society Dixieland, Flight of the Bumblebee and selections from West Side Story.

“What do you get when you mix the shenanigans of the Blues Brothers with the musical seriousness of the Canadian Brass? Metales M5!” – Omaha World-Herald

“M5 took the stage with an excellent concert, taking the audience on a wonderful journey through various musical genres.” Chiapas Daily

“Fun and festive – a visual, as well as aural, experience. Their playing attire. Though, bellied the seriousness of their performance.” Grand Island Independent.

Since its founding in 2005 in Morelia, the capital of Michoacán in the Central Highlands of Mexico, the quintet Metales M5 Mexican Brass has performed hundreds of concerts throughout Mexico, the United States and Canada. M5’s programs range through the brass literature and include classical and world music, contemporary repertoire and arrangements of popular music. On stage the five young musicians, each with a classical and symphonic background, mix the well- known with the unexpected - surprising, virtuosic and always entertaining. Thanks for their skills for playing fine classical chamber music, their showmanship, and their non-stop interaction with the audience and Latin American charm, the men of M5 present a concert-concept that becomes a unique musical-theatrical performance.

Metales M5 Mexican Brass is Ensemble-in-Residence at Morelia’s Conservatorio de las Rosas, North America’s oldest conservatory of music, founded in 1743. The quintet receives frequent invitations to renowned international music festivals, such as the Music Festival and the Jazz Festival of Morelia, the Chamber Music Festival of Aguascalientes, the FAOT Festival in Sonora etc. They have toured the USA and Canada with performances in Texas, Nebraska (Meadowlark Music Festival), Pennsylvania, Vermont, The Banff Centre in Alberta, Colorado (with the Pueblo Symphony), California, Illinois, Florida and New Mexico.

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7 US-Canada tours:Texas, Colorado, Nebraska, Vermont, Pennsylvania, Chicago and Alberta(2008-2009), California, Illinois y Florida (2010) represented by CALIFORNIA ARTISTS MANAGEMENT.
Guest artists in various international music festivals in different states of Mexico, like Veracruz, Aguascalientes, State of México, Guanajuato, for example the international Music Festival Morelia FIMM 2005 y 2009, the JAZZTIVAL of Morelia 2008, the FAOT Sonora 2010, International Chamber Music Festival of Aguascalientes, etc.
Tours in Mexico: state of Veracruz and Aguascalientes in 2010, national tour through 10 states with 31 concerts in 2007.
Resident group of the CONSERVATORIO LAS ROSAS, Morelia, Michoacan (2008-2010).
Invited by trumpet virtuoso Jens Lindemann to the BRASS RESIDENCY at THE BANFF CENTRE, CANADA, with several performances at the BANFF SUMMER MUSIC FESTIVAL 2008.
Organizers of the first BRASSFEST DE MORELIA 2007 with special guest FRED MILLS (formerly Canadian Brass).
Scholarship of the national arts council FONCA 2007.
Clinicians at the summer course INSTRUMENTA TRADICION in Oaxaca, 2007.
2 CD recordings: “Está Cañón” (2006, 2010 edition: “That’s A Plenty”), “Bach” 2010.

http://www.metalesm5.com/

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