The Award-Winning Saint Louis Brass Band presents exciting family-friendly concerts of light classic and popular music for enthusiastic listeners across the greater metropolitan St. Louis region. The STLBB is a British-style brass band featuring thirty of St. Louis’ finest brass and percussion players. (British Brass Bands use the traditional and uniquely colorful instrumentation of cornets, flugel horn, tenor horns, euphoniums, English baritones, trombones, tubas and percussion.)
Among its many concerts, the Saint Louis Brass Band has performed on KFUO-FM Classic 99’s “From the Garden – Live” radio series, at UMSL’s J.C. Penney Auditorium, at the St. Louis Art Museum, at historic Christ Church Cathedral, on Fair Saint Louis’ Main Stage under the Gateway Arch (for cheering crowds of hundreds of thousands) and in the St. Charles Crescendo Concert Series. The Band also entertains its many new fans in public park concerts, at country clubs, as well as in concert series sponsored by cities, regional churches and colleges.
The Saint Louis Brass Band avidly participates and has achieved much national success in the prestigious North American Brass Band Association annual competitions. In April 2001, the Band won the first place prize under the direction of Dr. Keith M. Wilkinson at the NABBA Honors Championship in Washington, D.C. The STLBB, conducted by Malcolm McDuffee, also won first place in the NABBA Challenge Championship held at Chicago in April 1999.
In August 2002, the band appointed Dr. Colin W. Holman as Musical Director. Under his leadership, the band won a very credible 3rd place in the NABBA 2003 Championship Division (highest division of the competition). The winning band was one of the very best bands from Europe. In fact, the Saint Louis Brass Band was only very narrowly beaten by one other US band and in 2003, the band ranked in the top 100 bands worldwide. (www.4barsrest World Rankings). In April 2004, again under the direction of Dr. Colin Holman, the band achieved 3rd placing in the Championship Division.
The Saint Louis Brass Band has received very generous financial support from foundations, corporations and individuals, including the Gateway Foundation, the Regional Arts Commission, the Whitaker Foundation, Anheuser-Busch, Mr. Ted Drewes and the Missouri Arts Council. The University of Missouri – St. Louis invited the Saint Louis Brass Band to be Brass Band-in-Residence in the Fall of 2001.
The Saint Louis Brass Band released its first Compact Disc, “Strike Up The Band,” in early 2002.
The Saint Louis Brass Band consists of twenty-eight professional brass and percussion performers whose mission is to spread the literature of the traditional English brass band through many high quality performances in the St. Louis Metropolitan area.
