Cathedral to host brass and organ concert

Friday, Nov. 29, 2019

SALT LAKE CITY — For the first time ever, Cathedral of the Madeline organist Gabriele Terrone will join with the musicians from the brass section of the Utah Symphony for a special Advent concert. Along with the cathedral’s Kenneth Jones pipe organ, there will be four trumpets, four horns, three trombones, a tuba and percussion.

“I hope the cathedral stays in place; it’s going to be a blast of sound,” Terrone said laughingly.

“This is something very new for Salt Lake City; I don’t think it has ever been done before,” Terrone said. “My hope is that this will become a signature event for the holiday season.”

The idea for the concert was born after the Jan. 13 Eccles Organ Festival premiere of “Preludio, Cantilena e Finale,” a work commissioned by Terrone to celebrate the festival’s 25th season. The work featured the members of the Madeleine Brass Ensemble, one of whom is Travis Peterson, the Utah Symphony’s principal trumpet player.

“We were having so much fun and we were working so well together that we thought about doing something bigger, involving not just a smaller ensemble but involving as many Utah Symphony brass players as possible,” Terrone said. 

With the approval of symphony officials, Terrone and Peterson moved ahead with plans for an Advent concert that will feature the symphony’s entire brass section.

The Dec. 15 program will include solos, ensemble, group numbers and what Terrone calls “major, massive works.” The concert will feature mostly Advent music “with some works that are not necessarily related with Christmas or Advent but that still have the flavor and color, the anticipation and excitement of Advent and the season of Christmas,” including Renaissance-period works, Terrone said.  

Some of the works are based on Christmas or Advent tunes, so attentive listeners may recognize them, Terrone said. 

For the concert the entire cathedral will be used as a stage in a style pioneered by Giovanni Gabrieli, a 16th-century Venetian composer, where several different instrumental groupings play spatially separated from each other.

“It gives the effect of music coming from different places at the same time and enveloping the audience,” Terrone said.

The concert will take place the day before the Cathedral Choir’s Christmas Carol Service on the first day of the Christmas novena. This organ and brass concert will be a “giant prelude” to the Christmas Carol Service, Terrone said. “My hope is that people can come to both of these concerts.”

The last number of the organ and brass concert, “O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” will be the opening number of the carol service. For the song, the musicians will be joined in song by the congregation.

“It is great to have the collaboration of the Utah Symphony musicians,” Terrone said. “For me, it’s like a dream come true.”

The hour-long, free concert is being offered under the auspices of the Eccles Organ Festival; it is made possible through donations from the Eccles Foundation, Kem Gardner and Dave Petersen.

WHAT: Brass and Organ Christmas Concert

WHEN: Sunday, Dec. 15, 8 p.m.

WHERE: Cathedral of the Madeleine, 309 E. South Temple, SLC

Free and open to the public.