September ’08

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This month sees Bryan returning to The Rat Pack – Live From Las Vegas, following the tour’s summer break. They kick off in Belfast, at the marvellous Grand Opera House, on Monday the 8th. The previous weekend Bryan will be performing with Mark Gillbanks and his fine orchestra for a couple of events. September also sees Rat Pack dates in Sunderland and Southport.

Perhaps more importantly, this month also marks the inaugural concert with the Lower Austria Concert Jazz Orchestra, to which Bryan was recently appointed as Lead Trumpet. Bryan will be visiting Austria twice in September, first to rehearse with the Orchestra and then to perform in the concert at the St. Pölten Jazz Festival on the 27th. The program is challenging but looks like a lot of fun; it’s entitled “Murdering The Classics” and features, amongst other works, the Stan Kenton version of Bernstein’s West Side Story.

Looking ahead to October, Bryan expects to be returning to the USA with the Rat Pack US National Tour. Visa permitting, he will be visiting Salt Lake City, Utah and Tempe, Arizona.

In any of the locales he visits, Bryan is always available to teach Trumpet Lessons; something he’s been doing a lot of lately! If you’re interested in organising a lesson, please check the Calendar to see when he’s nearby and get in touch to set it up.

Bryan had a fantastic trip to Austria at the end of May, playing with Thomas Gansch and his band; Gansch & Roses. The first concert they played, at the Schagerl Brass Festival, was broadcast live online by TheMusicPage.com. We’re promised that, at some stage, highlights from that concert will be made available on their site. In the meantime, please enjoy this video of the band playing Thomas’ Bill Chase tribute – “Der Rock Des Trompeters” – from the gig at Porgy & Bess in Vienna.

July-August ’08

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This month sees the end of the Rat Pack Tour for the time being. The show is playing in Brighton, Norwich and Bournemouth before it wraps up for the summer.

Bryan will be playing most of these dates but will be taking time out from the weekend in Norwich to head out to the beautiful La Perelada castle in Spain to play a casino show with Chris Mann and Mark Adams who are presenting their “Frank and Dean” show.

The day after the end of the Rat Pack tour, Bryan will be playing at the Manchester Jazz Festival with sensational Latin-Jazz Big Band La Gran Descarga. He played a handful of gigs with them last summer and it’s really a great band. They are playing the first half of a double bill with Roberto Fonseca at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester. For fans of Latin-American music, it’ll be a great night – come out and say hello!

For the remainder of the month of July, Bryan will be doing various other gigs including a Rat Pack event at the Liverpool Echo Arena and also playing with the fabulous Syd Lawrence Orchestra. Confirmed dates for August include gigs with The Real Macaws, 2 days in Glasgow playing “The Motown Show”, a weekend with the Glenn Miller Orchestra UK and an appearance at the “Jazz In The City” festival in Leeds with Steve Parry‘s “Big Band from Hell”. You can check the Schedule for further details.

In addition to these gigs, Bryan will be available to teach trumpet lessons in the Leeds area. He will available until sometime in early September at which point he will be making a big move away from Leeds – more details about that later, once the timetable has been confirmed. If you’d like to study with Bryan, please don’t delay – you may not have the chance for that long! To set up a lesson, please get in contact and we’ll organise it.

Bryan had a fantastic trip to Austria at the end of May, playing with Thomas Gansch and his band; Gansch & Roses. We’ll add more news about it shortly. The first concert they played, at the Schagerl Brass Festival, was broadcast live online by TheMusicPage.com – highlights will be available soon on the site. We’ll link to them once they become available. In the meantime, please enjoy this video of the band playing Thomas’ Bill Chase tribute – “Der Rock Des Trompeters” – from the gig at Porgy & Bess in Vienna.

Schagerl Brass Festival ’08 – Jazz Night

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The first gig on the Gansch & Roses “X-Large” Tour in May ’08 was at the Schagerl Brass Festival in Mank, Austria. We had a great gig which featured some special guests in addition to the usual band and was broadcast live, over the internet, on TheMusicPage.com.

These are a selection of the photos taken by the Brass Festival team – for the full collection, please visit the Brass Festival website.

June ’08

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June kicks off with a break from the regular Rat Pack routine – Bryan will be playing Lead Trumpet with the Wigan Jazz Club Big Band at the Southport Jazz Festival on Sunday the 1st of June. It promises to be a fun concert; we’re backing Andy Greenwood who will be paying tribute to the late, great Maynard Ferguson in a programme entitled “Remembering Maynard”.

The rest of the month continues much as usual with Rat Pack dates in Bromley, Swansea, Reading, Nottingham and Southend-on-Sea.

Bryan had a fantastic trip to Austria at the end of May, playing with Thomas Gansch and his band; Gansch & Roses. We’ll add more news about it shortly. The first concert they played, at the Schagerl Brass Festival, was broadcast live online by TheMusicPage.com – highlights will be available soon on the site. We’ll link to them once they become available. In the meantime, please enjoy this video of the band playing Thomas’ Bill Chase tribute – “Der Rock Des Trompeters” – from the gig at Porgy & Bess in Vienna.