Latest News and Events
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It is with great sadness that we announce the death by natural causes of founding member Martha Bixler at the age of 93. Martha has been a key figure in the growth of the American recorder and early music movement since the 1950s.
She held Bachelor degrees from Smith College and the Yale University School of Music and a Master's degree from Brooklyn College. She has long been active with the American Recorder Society (ARS). She was a member of the Board of Directors, twice President of the organization, editor of the Members' Library Editions and active on various committees. Her personal story of the first fifty years of the American Recorder Society, The American Recorder Society and Me; a Memoir, is available on the ARS web site.
She taught recorder, harpsichord and early dance at various colleges including Wagner College and Sarah Lawrence College, as well as at innumerable recorder and early music workshops around the United States, Canada, England and Ireland. As a performer, she played with a number of prominent early music ensembles including the New York Pro Musica, Musica Sacra, the Bach Aria Group and the Berkshire Bach Society.
She was the editor of a number of arrangements for recorders and recorded for Columbia Records and Decca Gold Label.
She also enjoyed playing viol and sackbut and was a regular participant at our Historic Brass Festivals. She, along with her good friends Susan Wilcox and Charlotte Leonard, were known at the annual Historic Brass Festivals as the "Sackbut Sisters".
Click on the title of this article to read the full version including some memories of Martha by the two remaining "Sackbut Sisters".
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11/29/2020 UPDATE: There will be an information session and brain storming discussion on December 12 at 1:00 PM EST (UTC -05:00)
To receive the meeting link and password, send an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. (Deadline December 12 at 12:00 PM EST)
Possible New Publishing Opportunities with the HBS!
Would you like more opportunities to be involved with publishing with the HBS?
We are very excited to announce the formation of an Exploratory and Planning Committee for a possible new online publication and are looking for members who would be interested in working on the planning, creation and running of this publication. Read this article to learn more!
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9/23/2020
Jeremy Peter Samuel Montagu (1927-2020), one of the foremost authorities on musical instruments of our time, has died peacefully surrounded by family following a short period of illness. Like the extensive collection of musical instruments and the library that he amassed in his Oxford home, Montagu’s multifaceted career as a scholar, author, musician, and curator was notable for its global purview and interdisciplinary breadth. -
The Board of Directors is pleased to announce that the Historic Brass Society is being restructured with additional opportunities for participation and elections are scheduled for November of 2020. The Board has been working over the past year to rewrite the By-Laws and promote greater participation among the HBS Membership and provide regular turnover in the senior leadership positions.
For details, please read this document and refer to the HBS Leadership and Staff Positions and Committees page for details on leadership, editorial, staff and committee positions.
Deadline for nominations for elected positions was October 15, 2020.
Update - October 17, 2020 - FINAL:
The slate of candidates for elective positions has been updated once again and finalized. No further nominations for ELECTIVE positions will be accepted, but there are still openings on the Membership and Events committees as well as the New Publication Exploratory Committee. Click here to view the list of candidates.
Important: Ballots will be sent to 2020 members of record as of 10/17/2020 THIS WEEK and voting will be open for a period of one month. The email with your unique link to the voting system will come from mail.electionbuddy.com so you may wish to white list this domain in your email to ensure that your ballot does not go into your spam filter.
Update - September 9, 2020:
The Board of Directors has completed its revisions to the By-Laws. There will be a ballet item on the November ballet to approve the adoption of the new By-Laws. To learn more and to review the proposed By-Laws, see the By-Laws of the Historical Brass Society page.
Also, the nominations process is off to a good start with a few nominations for all positions plus a few requests for postings to the various staff positions and committees in our announcement. There is still time to throw your hat into the ring for Vice President, Secretary or Director, and we still have plenty of opportunities on committees and on staff to help run various aspects of the organization so please submit your name or the name of someone else for consideration to the Nominating committee.
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For those interested in viewing some of our recent activities (concerts, conferences, etc.) we've started placing videos on Youtube. The first videos are from the recent James Reese Europe conference. We've got a page (listed under "features" and "additional content" on the menu) on our website by clicking here. The videos are on our new Youtube channel too, so you can subscribe or view them by clicking this link.