MUSIC REVIEW : Canadian Brass Performs at Segerstrom Hall

The intention of the Canadian Brass is exemplified by its members’ clothing: black tails, white shoes. They want to change your mind about classical music, to show you that it isn’t so stuffy; those shoes tell you immediately that something different is going on.

The Canadian Brass brought its act to Segerstrom Hall Wednesday night, and a very funny act it is. Ebenezer Scrooge would have enjoyed himself. Fred Mills and Ronald Romm (trumpets), David Ohanian (horn), Eugene Watts (trombone) and Charles Daellenbach (tuba) may be virtuoso brass players, but they are also astute and disarming comedians. And if the musical program Wednesday was lightweight, the laughter was boisterous enough to qualm any objections.

The concert was carefully planned and paced, building from a simple, sedate beginning to broad slapstick. It started with a group of five Christmas carols, including “I Saw Three Ships” and “Coventry Carol,” simply and tastefully arranged and played accordingly. This was capped by a jazzy arrangement of “Frosty the Snowman,” with the players trilling, clapping and shouting.

Things loosened up further with a Gabrieli canzona, played with the musicians scattered around the auditorium, the tuba player grabbing a seat front and center. Daellenbach followed with a funny bit announcing Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor, in an arrangement displaying the players’ sometimes-overlooked virtuosity.

Two selections from Weill’s “Three Penny Opera,” a comical “When I’m Calling You” with a crooning trombone/tuba duet, “Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise” and some Dixieland completed the first half.

The Brass opened the second half with straight arrangements of the Concerto in C for Two Trumpets by Vivaldi and Barber’s Adagio, then turned to its broadest humor yet: the burlesque, “Tribute to the Ballet.”

The jokes in this routine revolve around the mock-ballet posings and prancings of the musicians as they continue to play their horns. The tuba player, as a dying swan, lay down on stage; the trombonist twirled, the trumpeter performed splits, all while playing familiar ballet tunes.

Some sing-along carols--”Jingle Bells,” “Silent Night,” “Joy to the World”--closed the concert, with a large part of the audience joining the musicians on stage. The encore was an arrangement combining the “Hallelujah” chorus with “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

FO The Canadian Brass plays “Tribute to the Ballet” in Costa Mesa, including dying swans, splits and prancing, all while performing.