The Holyoke Civic Symphony has titled its 2023-2024 season “The Brass Menagerie,” not to be cute but to highlight a series of concerts dedicated to celebrating the family of brass instruments: the horn, the tuba, the trumpet, and the trombone.

On May 5, HCS will play its final show of the year, ’Bone Appetit (OK, that’s a little cute), a 3 p.m. concert in the Leslie Phillips Theater at Holyoke Community College with music centered on the trombone.

As program notes explain, Hector Berlioz, the 19th-century French Romantic composer, once called the trombone the most important brass instrument because “it possesses nobility and grandeur,” with “serious and powerful tones of sublime musical poetry, from religious, calm and imposing accents to savage orgiastic outburst.”

To capture some of that poetry, the symphony will feature music in which the trombone can shine, starting with “Danse Bacchanale” by French composer Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921), as well as work by Igor Stravinsky and contemporary American composer Allen Molineux. The latter’s “Zapateado,” a piece inspired by a Spanish dance of the same name, won the 2024 HCS Composition Competition.

The May 5 show will also showcase the work of guest solo trombonist Matthew Russo on “Concerto for Trombone and Orchestra” by Danish composer Launy Grondahl (1886-1960). Russo, who teaches at the University of Connecticut, plays in a number of ensembles in the state; he’s the principal trombonist of the Norwalk Symphony Orchestra.

In program notes, Russo says the trombone has had a “special history in Western music” due to its versatility, including even serving as a replacement for voices in choirs during the Renaissance.

His goal in performing in the Launy Grondahl piece, he says, “is to demonstrate the vast color palette of the trombone,” with the hope “that someone in the audience will say, ‘Wow, I never knew the trombone could do that.’”

 

Russell Brooks has been better known for years in these parts as Lord Russ, the flamboyant singer and guitarist who fronted bands such as The Aloha Steamtrain, shared stages with artists including Elvis Costello, Aimee Mann and Dinosaur Jr., and did a pretty fair Elvis impersonation.

Now Brooks is going by just his original name, and he’s shifted to fingerpicking a nylon-string guitar and playing original music — instrumentals and vocals — that’s inspired by Brazilian and Spanish sounds and a bit of Gypsy Jazz.

“When COVID came along, I started looking for something new,” he said during a recent phone call. “I basically put away my electric guitars and started listening to a lot of Spanish guitar.”

Brooks will bring his new sound to The Parlor Room in Northampton on May 11 at 7:30 p.m., sharing the bill with Tony Silva, the noted Valley guitarist who specializes in a range of music from Spain and Latin America. They’ll do separate sets and then play a few songs together.

Silva’s become a friend, Brooks said, and has shared some of his music and technique with him: “Tony showed me some chord progressions that I’ve been working with.”

Brooks also uses a loop pedal to set up backing tracks on guitar that he then solos over. He hasn’t played out much in recent years, and he sees his Parlor Room gig as a way to share his new musical approach and some basic life changes he’s made: “Playing music for me isn’t about being famous anymore, it’s about sharing peace and love.”

 

When the Hampshire Young People’s Chorus (YPC) takes the stage at Wesley United Methodist Church in Hadley on May 11 at 3 p.m., they’ll be marking a significant milestone: their 25th anniversary.

The chorus, formed in 1999 as an affiliate of the Hampshire Choral Society, is for children and teenagers ages 8 to 18, formed into two groups: the Concert Choir, for singers in grades 3-5, and the Chamber Singers, grades 6-12. The singers hail from 10 different Valley communities.

YPC offers its young vocalists plenty of challenges: admission is by audition, and the repertoire has included songs in many different languages, including French, Swedish, Spanish, Mandarin and Estonian. Sight reading and instruction in building strong vocal techniques are part of the weekly lessons; many members are already part of their school choruses, so they have busy schedules.

For years, YPC has also collaborated with other groups and artists in concerts, including The Sweetback Sisters and fiddle master Natalie MacMaster. K.C. Conlan, YPC’s longtime director, says in the last year the group performed with the Illuminati Vocal Arts Ensemble and the Handel + Haydn Youth Chorus, and with Boston’s Metropolitan Chorale in a production of “Carmina Burana.”

For the group’s May 11 concert, they’ll be performing work by a diverse group of composers, such as William Boyce, an 18th-century English contemporary of Bach and Handel, and Reena Esmail, whose compositions embrace Western and Indian musical traditions.

Conlan says she’s worked to have YPC singers develop “music literacy, beautiful tone and part-singing,” and she looks for music in a variety of styles to help realize those goals.

“I've long wanted to program William Boyce’s ‘Alleluia’ canon, and this year I had the right group for it,” Conlan noted in an email. And, she said, Esmail is “a young Los Angeles-based Indian-American composer whose piece ‘Listen’ really spoke to me.” 

 

More music on tap

Hawks & Reed Performing Arts Center in Greenfield is featuring a full night of improvisational jam rock and what the center calls “rock and roll reggae” tonight (Friday, May 3) with Arukah and Woody and the Rebel Alliance. The show begins at 8 p.m.

Mike Block takes the cello in amazingly different directions, whether playing solo or with different ensembles, handling classic Bach compositions or Chuck Berry licks, or using a strap to stand and move with his cello as he sings original folk-style compositions. He brings this fusion music to The Parlor Room on May 5 at 7:30 p.m.

Other eclectic sounds: the Bombyx Center for Arts & Integrity in Florence hosts musicians from around the world on May 5 at 7 p.m. They’re part of OneBeat, a U.S. program that brings some 25 young performers together for a couple weeks of musical exploration and collaboration, typically on very different instruments. Their residency concludes with a concert; this spring it’s in Florence.

Martin Barre, the guitarist for legendary progressive rockers Jethro Tull, comes to Northampton’s Academy of Music on May 10 at 8 p.m. with his current band for his show “A Short History of Tull.” The concert includes a special visual presentation and some interactive elements.

There’s a low-ticket alert in place to see pop/jazz stylist Rikki Lee Jones at the Shea Theater in Turners Falls on May 10 at 8 p.m.

Songwriter and pop singer Gaby Moreno, winner of two Latin Grammy Awards and a nominee for two other Grammys (in 2017 and 2023), will play an 8 p.m. show on May 11 at The Drake in Amherst.

Steve Pfarrer can be reached at spfarrer@gazettenet.com.