Crown City Brass Quintet plays Mammoth this weekend
The Sierra Summer Festival is seeking to expand beyond summer.
Which is why it is hosting its first-ever offseason musical engagement this weekend.
The Crown City Brass Quintet will perform at Mammoth’s Cerro Coso College campus this Saturday evening at 7 p.m. Tickets are $20.
The Quintet features Robert and Marty Fenton Frear on Trumpet, Sarah Bach on French Horn, Andrew Malloy on Trombone, and Norman Pearson on Tuba. The group will perform music from the Renaissance and by Leonard Bernstein. Tangos and waltzes will round out the program.
The Quintet with host Zach Halop at Northwood High School in Irvine circa 2008. Photo courtesy: Sheet staff.
Sierra Summer Festival Director Aimee Kreston explained the reasoning behind launching events out of season:
“We’re very excited about the Performing Arts Facility [being spearheaded by the Mammoth Lakes Foundation as the next big infrastructure investment in Mammoth’s Cerro Coso College]. The prospect makes us want to be more of a symphonic presence.
There’s no reason why Mammoth Lakes can’t be another Aspen [in terms of music].” She noted that Aspen hosts a nine-week long summer symphonic festival each year.
Currently, she said, “we have to keep our numbers down in order to play here. We can’t have a symphony performance with 80 to 100 musicians.”
Hopeful and optimistic about the future and the ultimate construction of a new Performing Arts Center, Kreston says events like the one this weekend are about “gearing up” for the future.
“With a proper facility,” she said, “there’s just so much available [in terms of talent and programming] and it’s so close [geographically].
“Once I heard about it and met Evan Russell, I thought ‘this has so much potential.’”
In essence, Kreston has had a mindset shift. It’s not just about maintaining and preserving what the Sierra Summer Festival is, but thinking about ways to expand the arts and music in Mammoth.
As for this weekend’s show, she hailed the Crown City Brass Quintet as a terrific group whose members “have played in every Hollywood movie you’ve ever seen. They’re top notch.”
In regard to the importance of music and culture, Kreston had this to say: “Kids that study three years of music before the age of 12 or 13 have been shown to have significantly higher IQs later in life … it actually develops the brain. Music … is a good way to raise kids.”
