Artist Series Concerts Rings In The Holidays With Acclaimed All Female Brass Ensemble Seraph Brass

Artists Series Concerts of Sarasota rings in the holidays with "Classical Holiday Brass," featuring Seraph Brass, a quintet made up of America's finest female brass players, Saturday, December 15, 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, December 16, 3:00 p.m., at the Historic Asolo Theater, 5401 Bay Shore Road, Sarasota. Known for their captivating programming and diverse body of repertoire, the quintet's holiday program will include such holiday favorites as selections from "The Nutcracker," "Bells of Christmas," "Joy to the World" and other carols for brass. The program also features Vivaldi's Winter, Movement 1 from "The Four Seasons," Grieg's "Holberg Suite," Liszt's "Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2," and more.

Tickets are $25 - $45 and are available online at www.artistseriesconcerts.org or by calling 941-306-1202, Monday - Friday, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. Student tickets for the concert, priced at $10, are available with current student ID at the door.

Seraph Brass founder and artistic director Mary Elizabeth Bowden first got her inspiration for an all-female brass ensemble while studying trumpet as a young girl: "When I was growing up listening to live concerts, my favorite groups were Canadian Brass and Dallas Brass, and they were all male, which never bothered me but I just thought to myself, why not have an all-female group?" That idea came to fruition years later in 2014 when Bowden, by then an acclaimed and prize-winning trumpeter, founded Seraph Brass, recruiting a revolving roster of the top female brass players from around the country for her project.

Members of Seraph Brass (the Sarasota roster features Mary Elizabeth Bowden and Raquel Rodriguez, trumpet, Rachel Velvikis, horn, Hana Beloglavec, trombone and Samantha Lake, tuba), have performed with such renowned ensembles as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Luzern Music Festival in Switzerland, National Symphony Orchestra, Daejeon Philharmonic in Korea, and Auckland Philharmonia in New Zealand. Many members of the ensemble performed with Adele on her 2016 North American tour. Bowden is also a former principal trumpeter for the Sarasota Opera Orchestra and is currently principal trumpet of the Artosphere Festival Orchestra and a member of the Iris Orchestra. Her second solo album, "Rêverie," will be released in April 2019.

Since its founding, Seraph Brass has quickly risen to prominence and now tours worldwide, captivating audiences with the skill of its musicians and a dynamic and diverse repertoire that includes original transcriptions, newly commissioned works, and beloved classics. The ensemble's debut studio album, "Asteria," was released to critical acclaim in January 2018 and, in a happy case of what goes around comes around, critics have likened Seraph Brass to the very groups that first inspired the young Mary Elizabeth Bowden, hailing them as "the next Boston or Canadian Brass."

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