(bright brass music) (bright brass music continues) - Hi, I'm Eric Funk.

Tonight on "11th and Grant," the Bobcat Brass Trio brings a fantastic and innovative perspective on brass performance.

(lively brass music) (lively brass music continues) This exciting chamber ensemble presents a wide range of repertoire from new music to the classics, as well as works adapted from other settings.

(exciting brass music) - Part of the cool sound of the trio is that we each have our individual sounds and when we come together, we have three flavors that come together and make this absolutely unique flavor.

(smooth brass music) - Bobcat Brass Trio, next on "11th and Grant."

- [Narrator] "11th and Grant" was made possible by the Greater Montana Foundation, encouraging communication on issues, trends, and values of importance to Montanans.

Montana State University Office of the President.

Quinn's Hot Springs Resort.

The Gilhousen Family Foundation.

Donna Spitzer-Ostrovsky, in loving memory of Jack Ostrovsky, the godfather of 11th and Grant.

Iris M-L Model.

Sanderson Stewart, enduring community design.

Music Villa, proudly offering Gibson acoustic guitars.

Bill and Jane Gum.

Sal and Carol G. Lalani.

Poindexter's, inspired technologies for a more vibrant life.

Bob and Karin Utzinger.

Mary Routhier.

The Rocking R Bar.

Stockman Bank.

And by these generous donors.

(upbeat jazz music) (upbeat jazz music) (bright jazz music) (bright jazz music continues) (romantic brass music) - Is there a lot of repertoire for brass trio?

- Uh-uh.

- No, there's, we have to dig for it, for good stuff.

- Or create it.

- And it's all pretty recent.

- But obviously the quintet is sort of the big deal.

- It's the mainstay, yeah.

But now more composers are writing for it and you're seeing a little more of those groups pop up.

And we are one of two groups from universities.

Another one was University of North Texas.

There's a brass trio there.

- So you three are all Montana State University, School of Music faculty.

Why not a quintet?

- Part of the reason we're trio is my fault because I haven't been able to figure out how to play a trombone and a tuba at the same time.

(laughs) And so being a brass quintet, since we are the brass faculty, on faculty we have, a trumpet professor, a low brass professor, which means I teach trombone, euphonium, and tuba.

Although my primary instrument is trombone.

But those are the three that I teach.

And then we have a horn professor.

So there are three of us, therefore we are a trio.

- Is it usually trumpet, trombone, horn?

I mean, is that?

- Yeah, pretty much always.

- That's for the trio.

- Yeah, it's a, I mean the end result is beautiful.

In my experience of listening to you guys, which is evident on this episode as well, is the range of variety.

You're playing different repertoire but the sound that you're creating also changes.

I mean, there's a stylistic shift and I think the average audience goer would think that a trumpet's a trumpet, a trombone's a trombone, and a horn's a horn and that those instruments are gonna sound the way they sound, not true.

And what's interesting to me is how the ensemble blend that you guys have is, it really works well.

- Part of the cool sound of the trio is that we each have our individual sounds and when we come together, I don't think we're trying to necessarily blend as much as we are, we have three flavors that come together and make this absolutely unique flavor.

- Yeah.

- And we don't have to sound the same, 'cause that would be very vanilla.

- So what you're describing is sort of a kaleidoscopic range within what you guys want to- - [Jeannie] I think so, that's the goal.

- Yeah, and the most successful pieces that we have, the most successful repertoire, the things that we found to play work with that kaleidoscope and then give you some unexpected things.

Like when I get to be higher than Sarah, I'm like, oh, the melody instrument suddenly isn't trumpet.

You get a different horn sound there.

Or my personal, personal favorite is when I get to be the bass and get to go lower than Jeannie.

- And I get to have the melody.

Melody, melody!

- Yeah, that's a lot of fun.

And, and composers that do that are really taking advantage, perfectly, of what we can do.

(brass plays) - In America, we have sort of compulsory education.

So you end up either in a public school or a private school, and there's going to be some sort of an ensemble that you play in, growing up.

Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm assuming that you guys must have all started in a band.

- Yes.

- Instead of an orchestra, 'cause orchestra's gonna come later.

But is that true for all of you?

That you started playing in band growing up?

- Oh absolutely.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- We're all band kids.

Band in school serves such an important function, other than just learning music, as you know.

It's a safe place for all us weird artsy kids that love music or like theater, same thing.

It's a way for students to get together and discover they love music and playing music together.

It's a joy to see a kid on a trumpet, learn three notes and be able to play a tune.

You know?

- It's empowering.

- It's really empowering.

- Something that I look back on and go, "Wow."

That was learning how to be in community and working together, and really buying in to a quality experience.

Because not only can you... You wanna play well, but you wanna be well together, as well.

- Yep.

- Well, in our culture, it's really, it's one of the singular team things that you do cooperatively where you're not trying to beat anybody.

- Yeah.

- Right.

- It's not like the football team or the basketball team.

It really is fun.

Collectively, you're creating beauty.

- Yeah.

- That's your objective.

- Yep.

- As a team with one another.

- When, when those students come to the university, you'll hear things, I'm sure you've heard some through the years too, in this light of like, well, at first they'll say, "Well, I just, I came from a really small community, "So, I wouldn't know that."

And then, through the years they gain that confidence and they start going, "Oh, I know that.

"I know how to do that."

And they become leaders, and then all of a sudden they start seeing their upbringing in a smaller community as more of an advantage, of like, "I know how I work through "I know what I've done to get where I am."

And, it gives them even more empowerment and meaning to what they're doing.

It's pretty exciting to see.

(peaceful brass music) - If I can plug our wonderful School of Music, one of the things that I love about this job is that it's not a conservatory.

Is that we get this amazingly diverse group of students that have all different interests and majors and ability levels, and come from all different backgrounds.

And they come together in our School of Music, which is very much like a family, and have a place to experience the music together and to excel in our School of Music together, no matter what, if they're gonna be an engineer or if they're gonna go off and play the tuba for a living or no matter what.

And we love that.

- Well, and a cool fact that I don't think we think often enough about is these students are coming in with maybe no marching band experience, no brass quintets, no orchestra, no symphony playing, and no, maybe they're not coming from a huge program that would have a band the size of either our Wind Symphony or University Band, and nevermind Jazz Band.

So you get these students coming in, getting these experiences for the first time and growing.

- And trumpet ensemble and horn choir, trombone choir- - Yes, all of it!

- And they're like, whoa!

- It's like, I have so many things I can do.

- [Jeannie] Yeah, all through music.

- [Sarah] And they grow so fast.

- [Jeannie] Yep.

They grow so fast and they make friends even faster.

- Yeah.

- Lifelong friends, too.

- Yeah, many of them aren't intending to do it for a living from the get go.

Like they're an engineering student, they're microbiology, and if they're practicing horn, that's a break from study microbiology, it'll be okay.

And then- - Using the other side of the brain.

- It's their relaxing time.

- Exactly, and then because they like, are doing it because they want to, it's their idea to do this on the side, teaching them is amazing because they'll remember.

They'll come back the next week and be like, yeah, I did all that stuff because it was fun.

It wasn't really an assignment even almost to them it was like, hey, I got better at the thing that I'm doing for fun.

- Well, it's interesting that we have such a high preponderance of students who graduate and get hired into jobs in all different fields.

And oftentimes those students that do matriculate and get hired also play an instrument.

So they do have that right brain, the imaginal affective domain.

- [Sarah] Yeah.

- That makes them a better more effective employee because they're used to this team thing and this cooperative event.

And they really want somebody who isn't, myopic skill that can do this.

But can join people together that have this sort of idea of community that you were alluding to.

(brass plays) - [Narrator] "11th and Grant" was made possible by the Greater Montana Foundation, encouraging communication on issues, trends, and values of importance to Montanans.

Montana State University Office of the President.

Quinn's Hot Springs Resort.

The Gilhousen Family Foundation.

Donna Spitzer-Ostrovsky, in loving memory of Jack Ostrovsky, the godfather of 11th and Grant.

Iris M-L Model.

Sanderson Stewart, enduring community design.

Music Villa, proudly offering Gibson acoustic guitars.

Bill and Jane Gum.

Sal and Carol G. Lalani.

Poindexter's, inspired technologies for a more vibrant life.

Bob and Karin Utzinger.

Mary Routhier.

The Rocking R Bar.

Stockman Bank.

And by these generous donors.

(upbeat music) (inspiring theme tune)