The Graham Ashton Brass Ensemble made its New York début in 2000 at the 25th anniversary conference of the International Trumpet Guild and has subsequently performed throughout the US.

Graham Ashton (trumpet) is Professor of Trumpet and Chair of Brass at Purchase College, State University of New York. As a soloist, he has appeared with numerous orchestras including the BBC Symphony, London Philharmonic, RTE Concert and Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestras, and the New York Virtuosi. A champion of brass ensemble music, Graham Ashton reformed the Graham Ashton Brass Ensemble (GABE) upon relocating to New York in 1999. The ensemble quickly made its mark by drawing together an eclectic mix of Manhattan's most distinguished brass players from the Orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and American Symphony.

James Pugh (composer) is Professor of Trombone at Purchase College, State University of New York, and enjoys a distinguished career as a freelance trombonist, composer, and educator. He has recorded in small-group jazz improvisational settings with such artists as Joe Lovano, David ‘Fathead’ Newman, and André Previn. He has also recorded classical chamber music with Yo Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, as well as the chamber music of Anton Webern, Elliot Carter, and Paul Bowles. He has been a featured soloist on Grammy award-winning recordings with Woody Herman and Steely Dan and has recorded large orchestral works with the Eos, Concordia, St. Luke's and 92nd Street Y Orchestras. The New York Philharmonic, the Minneapolis Symphony and the Concordia Chamber Orchestra, among others, have performed his compositions.

Daniel Schnyder (composer) was born in Zurich in 1961 and studied flute at the Conservatory of Winterthur, Switzerland and saxophone, jazz-arrangement and composition at Berklee College of Music in Boston. In 1996 he won first prize at the International Trumpet Guild Composition Contest, and was awarded the Conrad Ferdinand Meyer Prize and the Zolliker Kunstpreis in Switzerland. Among his credits as a composer are commissions from the Vienna Art Orchestra, Tonhalle Orchestra, Zurich, NDR Big Band & Symphony, Opera of Bern, Atlanta Symphony, Zurcher Kammerorchester, Milwaukee Symphony, and the Chicago Sinfonietta. In 1998, Daniel played two thirty-minute TV shows featuring his music for mixed ensembles, in a programme dedicated to new cross-over projects combining jazz and chamber music. He has composed and played the score to the silent movie Faust by Murnau (1926) and also wrote the music for the official celebration of Goethe’s 250th birthday, held at the Alte Oper in Frankfurt in 1999. Daniel Schnyder is composer-in-residence with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra.

released:
The Music of James Pugh & Daniel Schnyder
Scenes of Spirits

www.grahamashton.com