One of world’s finest composers of film music, Bruce Broughton, guest conducted the Lexington Brass Band in their season opener, on Sunday, November 5th, at Centenary Church, in Lexington, KY. Bruce Broughton recently received an unprecedented 10th Emmy Award for his score to the HBO film Warm Springs, and has received multiple academy award nominations for such great films as Silverado, Tombstone, Miracle on 34th Street, Young Sherlock Holmes, to named a few.

Broughton’s roots are in the brass band scene, and he has composed spectacular music for this medium. A great sample of his brass music was heard in this short, dynamic program. His wife, Belinda, outstanding professional violinist in her own right (she has played on many great film scores, including the first Star Wars), joined him in the concert, with Bruce as accompanist.

The band performed works that ranged from the theme music of the TV show JAG to symphonic overtures for brass. Broughton has a gift for painting “soundscapes” of a decidedly American flavor, and the band offered a sampling that included arrangements of “Erie Canal,” and “Jimmy Crack Corn” from Songs of the States, the challenging Frontier Overture, and the whimsical Harlequin for Brass.

Bruce and Belinda teamed up on “Gold Rush Songs,” while Dr. Beatrice Holz (Asbury College) sung Broughton’s “Songs of Stephen Crane” cycle, with Broughton on piano. Broughton’s earliest compositions were written for Salvation Army brass bands, and several of these marvelous works were presented, including a blues-inflected setting of “Amazing Grace.”

While Broughton’s music is highly accessible, two of his works stretched both audience and band: “Concert Piece for Eight B Flat Trumpets,” whose eight parts were originally written for Lew Soloff of Blood, Sweat, and Tears; and “Concert Overture: Covenant,” a symphonic treatment of a 19th-century hymn by Lowell Mason. The entire concert was marked by Broughton’s exciting, rhythmically charged style of music that has made his name well-recognized in the American entertainment industry.

For more information on the Lexington Brass Band, please visit www.lexingtonbrassband.com.