Oakland East Bay Symphony Premieres BROTHERS IN ARTS Tonight

The West Coast Premiere of Chris Brubeck and Guillaume Saint-James' jazz-orchestral work Brothers in Arts will highlight the 2014-2015 season opening of the Oakland East Bay Symphony tonight, November 7 conducted by Music Director Michael Morgan, who celebrates his 25th year with the Symphony. Brothers in Arts and Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony will be performed in one concert only, tonight November 7, at 8 pm at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland. The concert is sponsored by Wells Fargo and the Clarence E. Heller Charitable Foundation. For information and tickets, visit www.oebs.org.

Composer/performer and son of the legendary music innovator and Bay Area treasure Dave Brubeck, Chris Brubeck returns to Oakland East Bay Symphony with collaborator Guillaume Saint-James and members of his jazz quintet for the West Coast premiere of Brothers in Arts. Bay Area audiences will remember Chris Brubeck and friends from their moving and inspiring Dave Brubeck tribute with Oakland East Bay Symphony in 2013. The work, subtitled "70 Years of Liberty" pays tribute to the composers' fathers who were in France in 1944 during World War II. Chris' father served in Patton's army and Saint-James's was a teenager who would become a doctor and jazz amateur . Chris and Guillaume met when they shared a concert stage in Rennes, France, and discovered their fathers trod the same earth during one of Europe's-and the world's-most trying and triumphant eras. As such, Brothers brings together two generations and two continents. Guest soloists include Chris Brubeck, trombone; Guillaume Saint-James, saxophones; Didier Ithurssary, accordion; Christophe Lavergne, drums and Jerome Seguin, bass.

Brothers in Arts received its world premiere with the Orchestre Symphonique de Bretagne (the Symphony Orchestra of Britany) in France in June 2014 and was enthusiastically covered by media including France Ouest, Bretagne Économique, Chroníque Republicaine, Citizen Jazz, Nous Vous Ille, La Charte, Jazz Magazine, Ille & Vilaine, Agence France Presse, Cine Scenes, La Presse, Culturebox and multiple radio and television outlets.

Tickets for tonight's concert are priced $20 to $70 and go on sale October 1. For complete information about Oakland East Bay Symphony, please visit www.oebs.org.

About the Artists

Grammy-nominated composer Chris Brubeck continues to distinguish himself as an innovative performer and composer. An award-winning composer, he is clearly tuned into the pulse of contemporary music.

Chris has created an impressive body of symphonic work while maintaining a demanding touring and recording schedule with the Brubeck Brothers Quartet (with brother Dan on drums). The BBQ's second Koch recording, Classified, features Chris's composition for woodwind quintet and the BBQ, Vignettes for Nonet. This innovative fusion of classical and jazz genres is performed with the Grammy-nominated Imani Winds. Chris is a much sought-after composer, and in the last few years has been commissioned to write many works. 2013 will see the premiere of two new children's pieces written by Chris: The Hermitage Cats Save the Day, a Russian-American cooperative project about the cats in the Hermitage Museum and featuring visuals, musicians and actors. In May, Chris's symphonic work based on the George Selden book The Cricket in Times Square premieres in Washington, DC. Commissioned by the Kennedy Center, it will be performed by the National Symphony Orchestra and guest soloist Nick Kendall, with Steve Reineke conducting. Nick Kendall is also part of the amazing string trio, Time for Three, for which Chris wrote a concerto in March, 2010. That piece, Travels in Time for Three" was commissioned by a consortium of 8 orchestras including performances by The Boston Pops (in Symphony Hall and in Carnegie Hall), the Indianapolis Symphony, the Portland Symphony and several others. April, 2009 marked the premiere of Ansel Adams: America, an exciting orchestral piece Chris and Dave Brubeck wrote accompanying 100 of Ansel Adams' majestic images being projected above the orchestra. The piece was nominated for a Grammy for Best Instrumental Composition, and was the last piece Chris and his father collaborated on. Among some of Chris's other commissions are: Quiet Heroes: A Symphonic Salute to the Flagraisers at Iwo Jima, a moving piece for full orchestra and narrator; Mark Twain's World: A Symphonic Journey with Genuine Thespians (a genre-breaking piece for orchestra and actors based on the life of Mark Twain) and Interplay for 3 Violins and Orchestra, with performances by violinists Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg (classical), Eileen Ivers (Irish) and Regina Carter (jazz). Chris's second Boston Pops commission, it was broadcast on PBS "Evening at Pops" and won Chris an ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for best composition for television broadcast.

Chris's second symphonic CD, Convergence, on Koch International Classics features the Czech National Symphony Orchestra and is entirely comprised of Chris's original compositions including Frederica von Stade singing River of Song, together with the title composition, Convergence, a piece commissioned by the Boston Pops to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Symphony Hall. The CD also includes Chris performing his second major trombone work, Prague Concerto for Trombone and Orchestra. (His first trombone concerto was recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra on the Koch release, Bach to Brubeck.)

Chris's most recent thrill was performing with his brothers, Darius, Dan and Matthew, in an all-star tribute to their father, Dave Brubeck, as part of Washington's Kennedy Center Awards, which was televised internationally in December, 2009.

Saxophonist and composer Guillaume Saint-James was discovered in 1997 by Aldo Romano. He was awarded 1st prize in the professional competition of the Jazz Festival in Vannes (France). While playing with major artists of the French stage, like Eric Le Lann, Emmanuel Bex, Franck Tortiller, Laurent de Wilde, Pierrick Pédron, Franck Agulhon, Stéphane Huchard, Pierre de Bethmann, Guillaume Saint-James has created his own sextet Jazzarium.

Jazzarium has delivered a flawless and unwavering musical cohesion that functions almost by telepathy. Geoffroy Tamisier, Jean-Louis Pommier and Guillaume Saint-James, a brass wind trio, form the cornerstone of Jazzarium. The foundations are based on Jérôme Séguin with his feline groove, on bass guitar and on Christophe Lavergne a master of inventiveness, on drums. A unique energy completes the group with Didier Ithursarry on accordion, whose music melts voluptuously with that of the wind section.

Following on from the highly acclaimed album Météo Songs, in his recent creation entitled Polis he explores urban hustle and bustle. Released in February 2012 on the Plus Loin label the album has been awarded the accolade of jazz "Revelation" by Jazz Magazine and "OUI !" of Culture Jazz.

Thanks to his capacity to mould the musical substance of his sextet to make it sound like a full orchestra he has been commissioned to write many works for large ensembles in the last few years.

Invited by the Symphony Orchestra of Brittany, Guillaume Saint-James embarked on writing an extension of his last album Polis: "Megapolis", composed for symphony orchestra and jazz sextet, is a fusion of classical and jazz genres, a link between written and improvised music. He subtly invites the jazz sextet to dialogue with the symphonic orchestra.

His compositions conjure visions that the artist transforms into sequences where humour and rhapsody co-exist naturally; where expansive audio spaces meet rhythmic jewels in an amplitude and flow that are the heritage of not only the great masters of classical music but also the legacy of the jazz artists such as Duke Ellington, Bernard Hermann, John Barry or Maria Schneider.

He wrote educational pieces for his own publishing company Jazzimuth Creation, and also for the most famous educational French publisher Fuzeau.

Since 2012 he is also the leader of original projects like Le Tatiphone, a jazz and video tribute to the great film-maker Jacques Tati, and Jazz around the Bunker, a jazz interpretation of the songs by the French author-composer-singer Serge Gainsbourg with Sébastien Boisseau (bass) and Matthieu Donarier (sax). He has started a new collaboration with the pianist Omar Sosa.

Since 2008 he has been the director of the jazz festival Jazz aux Écluses in Hédé (Brittany/ France).

To post a comment, you must register and login.