Founded in 1988, The Historic Brass Society (HBS) is an international music organization whose goal is to promote the exchange of serious ideas about the history and performance of
brass instruments and music, ranging from Antiquity through the twentieth century.
Overview
The Society was created by participants in the annual Early Brass Festival, founded in 1985, in Amherst, Massachusetts. In a short time the Society grew in size and initiated an ambitious publishing program. Since 1989, it has produced an annual peer-reviewed journal, the Historic Brass Society Journal and in 2021 began publishing a twice-annual e-zine, Historic Brass Today. Additional news and other content can be found on its website, www.historicbrass.org. In addition to these current publications, from 1989 through 2005 it published the Historic Brass Society Newsletter and has published a series of books in conjunction with Pendragon Press, the Bucina book series.
The Historic Brass Society also sponsors workshops, conferences, and symposia world-wide. The Historic Brass Society now has about 300 members from 25 countries.
Activities
The Society has become the principal forum for scholarly research in the field of historic brass instruments, their music, composers and performers. Because it draws its members from both the scholarly and performing communities, it often serves as a liaison between the early brass world and many organizations in other cultural and intellectual communities. The Society has participated in Congresses of the International Musicological Society since 1997 and has organized study sessions at annual conferences of the
American Musicological Society
The American Musicological Society (AMS) is a musicological organization which researches, promotes and produces publications on music. Founded in 1934, the AMS was begun by leading American musicologists of the time, and was crucial in legitim ...
. It has organized conferences in collaboration with the
Galpin Society
The Galpin Society was formed in October 1946 to further research into the branch of musicology known as organology, i.e. the history, construction, development and use of musical instruments. Based in the United Kingdom, it is named after the emin ...
,
American Musical Instrument Society The American Musical Instrument Society (AMIS) was formed in 1971 "to promote study of the history, design, and use of musical instruments in all cultures and from all periods" (the branch of musicology known as organology). Based in the United Stat ...
, CIMCIM, and other organizations and has presented conferences at many distinguished institutions including
Yale University
Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...
,
Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...
,
Oberlin College,
Cité de la Musique
The Cité de la Musique ("City of Music"), also known as Philharmonie 2, is a group of institutions dedicated to music and situated in the Parc de la Villette, 19th arrondissement of Paris, France. It was designed with the nearby Conservatoire d ...
(Paris), The Institute for Jazz Studies of
Rutgers University
Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and was ...
,
Edinburgh University
The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted ...
, the
Horniman Museum
The Horniman Museum and Gardens is a museum in Forest Hill, London, England. Commissioned in 1898, it opened in 1901 and was designed by Charles Harrison Townsend in the Modern Style. It has displays of anthropology, natural history and musical ...
(London), the
Royal College of Music
The Royal College of Music is a conservatoire established by royal charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, UK. It offers training from the undergraduate to the doctoral level in all aspects of Western Music including performanc ...
(London),
Indiana University
Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana.
Campuses
Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI.
*Indiana Universi ...
, and
Wake Forest University
Wake Forest University is a private research university in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Founded in 1834, the university received its name from its original location in Wake Forest, north of Raleigh, North Carolina. The Reynolda Campus, the un ...
, to name a few.
Key Officials
Founder Jeffrey Nussbaum served as the Society's president from 1989 through 2021. In 2020 the Society's by laws were rewritten and annual elections with term limits for all elected offices except for secretary were implemented to promote greater participation by the Society's Membership. The vice president is elected and serves for two years as president-elect before becoming president for an additional two years. The secretary serves for a three year term and members of the board are elected to serve three year terms with a limit of two consecutive terms.
The Society's Board of Directors also includes many leading scholars and performers. Members of the Society include scholars, teachers, professional and amateur performers, students, instrument collectors, museum curators, and others.
Publications
The Historic Brass Journal is a scholarly peer-reviewed publication that has published articles ranging from Antiquity through to the twentieth century and early jazz, written by leading authorities, including
Don Smithers,
Edward H. Tarr, Reine Dahlqvist, Herbert Heyde, Keith Polk, Renato Meucci, Trevor Herbert, and many others. The Historic Brass Journal is overseen by its own editorial board consisting of internationally known scholars with further oversight by the Society's board of directors.
The e-zine Historic Brass Today offers the Society's members a wide range of less formal material, including interviews with performers, makers, collectors, and brass teachers including articles in languages other than English. Its international staff and contributors consists of scholars, performer-scholars, collectors and amateurs from the full range of the Society's Membership.
From 1989 to 2005, the HBS published a newsletter, The Historic Brass Society Newsletter.
The Society's website contains additional news items, articles, reviews and interviews These include articles on instrument collections and an ongoing series on early brass instrument makers and their work, as well as reviews of CDs, music, and books, and the extensive News of the Field section, as well as real-time discussion groups.
The Society has a YouTube channel where Society events including concerts and scholarly presentations from past events can be viewed.
External links
The Historic Brass Society official site
Brass instrument organizations