Youth Band Biography

The Triangle Youth Brass Band, located in Raleigh, North Carolina, was formed in 1997 as an expansion of the Triangle Brass Band's educational endeavors. The organization consists of two bands, the Triangle Youth Brass Band and the Triangle Youth Brass Ensemble, and nearly 80 of the Triangle’s most talented young musicians participate. The TYBB’s mission is to provide an opportunity for the finest area high school brass and percussion players to supplement their wind band experience by performing in a British-style brass band and to raise the level of brass playing in the area.

The Triangle Youth Brass Band maintains a strict instrumentation based on the British brass band tradition. B-flat and E-flat cornets, E-flat tenor horns, and B-flat baritones are used in addition to trombone, bass trombone, tuba, and percussion. In addition to contemporary pieces written for brass band, the group’s repertoire includes orchestral and band transcriptions, and students also perform chamber music in small quartets or quintets. For both ensembles, membership is by recommendation and audition, and the season lasts from November to May each year. Both bands perform at the Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts’ Meymandi Concert Hall in Raleigh. The youth program also sponsors clinics and masterclasses with guest artists and conductors and hosts Brassmas, a December event in which middle and high-school students from all over the Triangle area perform an outdoor concert of holiday music.

In its first season, TYBB gave only one performance, but the program grew swiftly; Matt Edwards, Stephen Lytle, John Enloe, and Randy Guptill conducted that year. Guptill took over as director for the 1998-1999 school year and served until its current director, Tony Granados, came aboard in January 2001. In 2006, the youth band program expanded with the formation of an additional band, the Triangle Youth Brass Ensemble. Although this ensemble does not adhere to a strict British instrumentation, the slightly larger TYBE is patterned after the British style. The TYBE competed in the Youth Open section at the NABBA 07 Championships winning First Place in the inaugural year of that section. This additional ensemble provides more students with the opportunity to develop their skills as musicians in a youth brass band program that has become the premiere organization of its kind in North America

As the program has flourished, so has its reputation. The Triangle Youth Brass Band often travels and performs outside the Triangle area of North Carolina. Recent tours have taken the band to the North American Brass Band Association Championships, where the band earned First Place Honors in the Youth Division in 2001, 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2007. The TYBB were featured performers at the Great American Brass Band Festival in 2003, visited Atlanta to perform with the Georgia Brass Band in 2005, and performed for the City of Greensboro’s Independence Day fireworks celebration in 2006.

A cornerstone of the TYBB program is its commitment to bringing first-rate musicians from all over the world to the Triangle. Guest soloists and clinicians have included Keith Wilkinson (Brass Band of the Western Reserve), Terry Everson (Professor of Trumpet, Boston University), Michael Kris (Professor of Low Brass, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), Mark Clodfelter (Professor of Trumpet, University of Kentucky), Ray Farr (conductor/composer), James E. Jackson III (euphonium, U.S. Coast Guard Band), Jens Lindemann (Professor of Trumpet, UCLA and former trumpet, Canadian Brass), Steve Sykes (tuba soloist, conductor, and adjudicator), Chris Martin (Principal Trumpet, Chicago Symphony), Colin Williams (Principal Trombone, Atlanta Symphony), Demondrae Thurman (Professor of Euphonium, University of Alabama and Sotto Voce Quartet), Tom Bratten (U.S. Army Band), Vince DiMartino (Professor of Trumpet, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky), and local trumpeter’s Don Eagle (NC Symphony) and Dennis DeJong (Carolina Brass).

Current News

Please check the concerts page for an outline of our current season. More concerts have been added to our schedule.

Are you a former member of the Triangle Brass Band? If so, we'd like to know...Where Are You Now? Drop us an e-mail at news1@trianglebrass.org.

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