The Downeast Brass Quintet will perform during the Wiscasset Art Walk from 5 to 8 p.m. on Thursday, July 29, as they use the new downtown sidewalks as their stage and perform throughout the village.
The musicians, Dwight Tibbets and Andy Forster on trumpet, Mike Peterson on trombone, Mark Mumme on tuba, and Loren Fields on French horn, are skilled professional musicians and music educators.
Tibbetts, a graduate of Wiscasset High School and the school’s band, has been playing in brass quintets for about 35 years.
“Brass quintets are hip,” Tibbetts said. “The days of community bands and big bands are long gone, and brass quintets fill the gap.”
The Downeast Brass quintet has an extensive repertoire, he said, and is extremely versatile.
“We do parades, concerts, everywhere a big band or community band might perform,” he said. In 2017, Downeast Brass performed at Wiscasset Holiday Marketfest, entertaining shoppers while playing on the sidewalks in freezing temperatures.
Tibbetts, now retired after teaching music in Augusta for more than 30 years, spends much of his professional life arranging music for brass quintets. The Downeast Brass started when he was looking for an outlet for his arrangements and, today, the quintet is likely to play many of his arrangements during a concert.
Tibbetts describes the sound of Downeast Brass as “full and complete.” He explains that when arranging, he takes a big band score and “boils it down” for a quintet by eliminating the doubling of sounds – different instruments playing the same notes – so that all the basic notes of the score are played, resulting in that aural completeness. In addition, Downeast Brass is “updating all the time. We’re always moving forward with new music and new arrangements. We don’t want to date ourselves with the music we play.”
The pandemic had an impact on Downeast Brass, just like other musical groups across the state. Tibbetts said the group had 35 gigs booked for summer 2020, but with Covid restrictions, all gigs were canceled. So far this season, they have about a dozen performances confirmed, including Wiscasset Art Walk.
For more information about Wiscasset Art Walk, visit wiscassetartwalk.org or send a message to wiscassetartwalk@verizon.net. Wiscasset Art Walk is a program of Wiscasset Creative Alliance.
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