- [Announcer] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the Citizens of Minnesota.

(loon calling) (bright music) (upbeat horn music) (upbeat horn music continues) (upbeat horn music continues) (upbeat horn music continues) (upbeat horn music continues) (upbeat horn music continues) (upbeat horn music continues) (upbeat horn music continues) (upbeat horn music continues) (upbeat horn music continues) (upbeat horn music continues) (upbeat horn music continues) (upbeat horn music continues) (audience applauds) - Hi, I'm Charles Lazarus from the Minnesota Orchestra.

I'm a trumpet player.

- And I'm Douglas Wright.

I'm the Minnesota Orchestra's principle trombone player.

- [Charles] We have a brass quintet out of the orchestra.

We call ourselves the Uptown Brass because we rehearse in our horn player's sometimes in his garage, actually, in uptown Minneapolis.

And we've been playing together for over 15 years, and we love touring and playing together and playing a wide variety of music.

- We're essentially an exciting garage band.

(Charles and Douglas chuckle) (somber horn music) (somber horn music continues) (somber horn music continues) (solo trombone music) (somber horn music) (somber horn music continues) (somber horn music continues) (somber horn music continues) (somber horn music continues) (somber horn music continues) (somber horn music continues) (somber horn music continues) (inspiring horn music) (inspiring horn music continues) (inspiring horn music continues) (inspiring horn music continues) (inspiring horn music continues) (inspiring horn music continues) (inspiring horn music continues) (inspiring horn music continues) (inspiring horn music continues) (inspiring horn music continues) (inspiring horn music continues) (audience applauds) - Well, brass instruments are among the oldest instruments in the world.

They've been around so long that there are many styles of music you can play brass instruments for.

You can play rock and roll, you can play jazz, classical music, chamber music, orchestral music.

It's kind of endless.

And because of that and the sonority, brass instruments are a little bit like a choir in that there's a similarity in the sounds as they blend together, it's a really satisfying sound that we'd love to hear, and we all also happen to be really good friends and enjoy playing with each other.

So that variety is the thing, I think, that we really enjoy 'cause we can play any kind of music.

- And I think, even going back to your student days, our student days, one of the best things for a musician, any musician's playing, is playing chamber music.

When you talk to string players they love playing in string quartets.

Woodwinds love playing in woodwind quintets because you are a quarter of the finished product as opposed to one 100th of the finished product.

And it just makes you both take some ownership over the musical output, but also you own kind of the sound of the instrument and the ensemble as a whole.

So it's really good for all of our playing and as Chuck said, we're great friends and we have a good time traveling and doing stuff together.

(uplifting horn music) (uplifting horn music continues) (uplifting horn music continues) (uplifting horn music continues) (uplifting horn music continues) (uplifting horn music continues) (uplifting horn music continues) (uplifting horn music continues) (uplifting horn music continues) (uplifting horn music continues) (uplifting horn music continues) (uplifting horn music continues) (uplifting horn music continues) (uplifting horn music continues) (uplifting horn music continues) (uplifting horn music continues) (uplifting horn music continues) (uplifting horn music continues) (uplifting horn music continues) - [Michael] (indistinct) Go!

(cowbell whacking rhythmically) (lively trumpet music) (lively trumpet music continues) (lively trumpet music continues) (lively trumpet music continues) (lively trumpet music continues) (lively trumpet music continues) (uplifting horn music) (uplifting horn music continues) (uplifting horn music continues) (uplifting horn music continues) (uplifting horn music continues) (somber horn music) (somber horn music continues) (somber horn music continues) (somber horn music continues) (audience applauds) - Common Chords was started in 2011 and it's really an opportunity for us to connect with our Minnesota community and friends and make new friends and share what we do.

And it's fun for us as a brass quintet when we do these extra events where we go into schools and we play with community orchestras and play in the breweries and we even played the city council meeting this week, and it's really a unusual way to connect with an audience and come and actually visit Austin and get to know the people here and share what we do.

So it's a lot of fun for us.

- I think one thing we try to do in our programming when we are playing out in the community and at various locations is we try to have a little bit of everything for everybody.

And we tend to start sort of very early.

Today we played music from Johann Sebastian Bach and we even played a piece that was written by the Vikings, the original Vikings, not the Minnesota type.

And then we'll bring it all the way up to contemporary to pieces that were written for us.

We play music that Chuck's written for us and we try to have a wide range of style and time periods and some fast and some slow and just try to cover the entire spectrum as much as we can.

- We like to play anywhere that people want to enjoy music and have a good time.

And we joke that when we play in brew pubs we're in our natural habitat there.

And one thing, you're talking about choosing the music, sometimes having performed so much together, we start to learn what audiences like and we learn things like in a brewery, people love the tuba.

I don't know why.

(Douglas chuckles) There's just something about a brewery and the tuba, so we always feature Steve Campbell on the tuba when we play in the brew pubs.

And then we go into schools and maybe there are students that have never heard a professional ensemble play before.

And if we see a little spark go off in someone's eyes that they think, "Wow, maybe if someone applies themselves, they can take what they're doing a lot further."

So we have a lot of satisfaction and sharing in ways outside of the orchestra.

Nothing can match the power and the synchronicity of 85 people on stage playing in a symphony orchestra, but you can get a little bit more personal and individual in smaller chamber music groups, and so that's something we really enjoy.

(pensive horn music) (pensive horn music continues) (pensive horn music continues) (pensive horn music continues) (pensive horn music continues) (pensive horn music continues) (pensive horn music continues) (pensive horn music continues) (pensive horn music continues) (pensive horn music continues) (pensive horn music continues) (pensive horn music continues) (pensive horn music continues) (pensive horn music continues) (lively horn music) (lively horn music continues) (lively horn music continues) (lively horn music continues) (lively horn music continues) (somber horn music) (somber horn music continues) (somber horn music continues) (somber horn music continues) (somber horn music continues) (audience applauds) - [Douglas] That brew pub was pretty nice, must say.

- [Charles] Well, and we're playing the Spam Museum shortly later today, and that could potentially top that.

(Douglas chuckles) We're sure.

We've enjoyed everything we've done so far.

- [Douglas] I think they kind of go hand in hand, right?

(Charles and Douglas laughing) - [Charles] We have a whole staff that plans this for years and I believe this started in 2017, and we were supposed to be here in 2020 and obviously that wasn't able to happen.

So first of all, it's very satisfying to finally be here after all these years of planning.

But our director of operations, Mele Willis, works with the steering committee in Austin and finds out what the community of Austin is interested in and what things resonate.

And there's so many meetings that they have to plan things and it's just building step by step where we can have the most impact and share the most of music because music is something that we strongly believe makes us better people.

Because when you're playing music, you're listening by the nature of it.

When you're playing music, you're experiencing teamwork and leadership and all kinds of great things that relate not only to students, but how people live in their community.

So it's really just about educating ourselves about Austin.

So it's a learning process for us as well.

(lively horn music) (lively horn music continues) (lively horn music continues) (lively horn music continues) (lively horn music continues) (lively horn music continues) (lively horn music continues) (lively horn music continues) (lively horn music continues) (lively horn music continues) (lively horn music continues) (lively horn music continues) (lively horn music continues) (lively horn music continues) (lively horn music continues) (lively horn music continues) (lively horn music continues) (audience applauds) - I think moving an entire orchestra is, it's a behemoth thing.

There's a hundred people on stage plus there's a ton of support staff and equipment.

I think when we move, we take an entire semi truck to move all of our instruments from spot to spot to spot.

And when it's just the five of us, we all kind of just jam ourselves into a van with our instruments and hope for the best.

(Charles and Douglas chuckle) (bright horn music) (bright horn music continues) (bright horn music continues) (bright horn music continues) (bright horn music continues) (bright horn music continues) (bright horn music continues) (bright horn music continues) (audience applauds) (lively horn music) (lively horn music continues) (lively horn music continues) (bright music) - [Announcer] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

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