The Historic Brass Society will be hosting an in-person Symposium July 10-14, 2024 in New York City, on Innovations in Brass: Design, Manufacturing, Performance, Repertoire, Teaching.
We are currently accepting proposals for presentations of up to 20 minutes, including papers, lecture-recitals, musical performances, and instrument demonstrations relating to the broad topics of:

• brass instrument design and development
• manufacturing and publishing
• repertoire, composers and performers
• historical performance practices
• pedagogy and pedagogues

Proposals should include an abstract of 250 words, a 75-word biography of each presenter (or an ensemble biography) and email contact information. Performance proposals should include any specific instrument requirements (piano/organ/harpsichord, etc.)  Shorter presentations are also welcome; please provide expected timing.

All proposals should be submitted by email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. no later than November 15, 2023.

Responses will be sent out by January 15, 2024.
Presentations will be followed by a short Q & A period. Performances may be grouped into Concert Sessions which may be open to the general public, and may include some form of "Meet-and-Greet" session with the performers as well.

Registration for the Symposium and membership in the HBS will be required for all presenters, Some assistance may be available on a case-by-case basis.

Please continue to check here for more information or email questions to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

After an extensive search process, the HBS Executive Committee has hired a General Manager, Adam Dillon. 

Congratulations and welcome to Adam! 

Diego Ortiz: Caleidoscopio

Comet Musicke

Son an ero 18 (2021)

If you are a member of this Society, or at least of that portion of the Society that touches on Renaissance music, you surely know the name of Diego Ortiz (c1510–c1570), particularly for the music of his Trattado de glosas of 1553, an ornamentography manual that in­cludes a number of sample improvisations, some on a tune, some over a bass, and so forth, that have been staples in the solo repertory of early wind and string players for years. A num­ber of these appear on this two-CD set, and they are as good as always. A lot less well known is his Musices liber primus of 1565, a conventional book of Latin sacred music. Eight motets from that book are here, and they are a most wel­come addition to the recorded body of Span­ish Renaissance music. And there are a number of thematically related works not by Ortiz included too. 

Ex tenebris ad lucem: Venetian Penitential Music from a Time of Plague, 1575–77

Concerto Palatino, dir. Bruce Dickey

Passacaille PAS 1135 (2023)

I bet a lot of us who run early-music ensembles have lately had at least a fleeting idea about a show or a recording devoted to music for plague. I doubt that anyone has done it better than Bruce Dickey and Con­certo Palatino. 

            The plague in question was in Venice between 1575 and 1577, killing, as Dickey ex­plains in lucid and absorbing liner notes, somewhere between a quarter and a third of the city’s population. It inspired a considerable religious upheaval, including the construction of Palladio’s Church of the Redeemer, Il Redentore, and, one presumes, performances of a good deal of sacred music in an effort to ward off the pestilence and, later, to say thanks for their deliverance. 

Holger Eichhorn, pioneering cornettist, musicologist, polemicist, and editor, has left us. I first met Holger in 1975, when, having heard news of a new cornetto player in Basel, he invited me to come to Berlin to meet him. I took a night train, which Holger (and his younger brother Klaus) met at the station. He accompanied me to his place and then listened intently as I, eyes barely open, warmed up on my Monk resin cornetto. I still remember vividly his first words, “Hmm… nice, but still rather trumpetlike.” With that visit I came to know Holger’s passion for the cornetto, his intensity, his unwillingness to compromise on anything, his immense knowledge and his propensity to play on instruments that had nothing to do, that I could discern, with historical cornetti. As I got to know him better over the next couple of decades, all of those impressions only deepened - and also my perplexity and my respect. 

            Dr. Joanna Hersey, longtime HBS member and the organization’s Secretary, was honored at the International Tuba Euphonium Conference held May 29th-July 3rd, held at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona. The International Tuba Euphonium Association (ITEA) celebrated the organization's 50th anniversary with a week of concerts, student competitions, masterclasses, and historical presentations. Participants gathered from across the world, joined by local educators, students, community members, and a variety of exhibitors showcasing instrument design and new music.

Congratulations to the 2023 Christopher Monk Award recipient, Jeremy West!

West is an evangelist for the cornett, the often-overlooked wind instrument which was held in the highest possible regard during the 16th and 17th centuries. He continues to play a lead role in re-establishing this instrument as a recognized and accepted virtuoso and ensemble instrument and now has thirty-five years of top class playing and recording experience with many of Europe's leading renaissance and early baroque ensembles.

American trumpeter Josh Cohen, already established as one of the leading period trumpeters in North America, has catapulted himself into the enviable position of exemplary historical recording artist with his debut compact disc, Altissima, Works for High Baroque Trumpet. Manifesting challenging repertoire from the late seventeenth through mid-eighteenth centuries, the disc is a vehicle for Cohen to showcase his extraordinary musical artistry on the valveless Baroque trumpet.

It's here!

The inaugural edition of Historic Brass Today, an all-new publication of the Historic Brass Society to be published two times a year, bringing you news items from the historic brass community around the globe, articles on a wide variety of topics, interviews, instrument reports, reviews, and even a cartoon!