Brass Menazeri

The Brass Menazeri is the Bay Area's premier Balkan Rom ("Gypsy") style brass band, performing hard driving music of Serbia, Macedonia & Greece.
Brazen, our first ever full length CD, presents rousing, inspiring, soulful Balkan Rom, Serbian, & Greek-Macedonian tunes with heart-rending improvisations, lush vocals, & all the infectious energy of our live performances . Produced by Tim Boyle (Les Misérables; South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut; Team America; collaborator with Quincy Jones, Van Dyke Parks, & Joanna Newsom; and half-producer of vocalist Briget Boyle), Brazen is a shining example of traditional Balkan repertoire combined with new sensibilities & innovative arrangements in the hands & lips of American devotees.
Brazen is now available at www.cdbaby.com/cd/brassmenazeri or on iTunes , or directly from our Snocap store, just above on this page!
If you would like to book the Brass Menazeri, write to [email protected].
The Brass Menazeri is:
Peter Jaques (director, clarinet, trumpet)
has been a fixture of the Bay Area Balkan & Near Eastern music scene since 1995. His playing style combines traditional Balkan Rom, Turkish & Greek idioms with his own, deeply soulful approach. He also plays with Stellamara (stellamara.com), a Middle Eastern/Balkan/world fusion ensemble, and Gamelan X (gamelan-x), the Balinese-hybrid processional orchestra directed by Eric Oberthaler.
Briget Boyle (vocals, snare) started singing music from Eastern Europe in 2000 when she attended the College of Santa Fe as a Music Performance and Composition major. She relocated to Austin, TX in 2003 where she spent a year as the lead singer for the African drumming, dancing and singing ensemble, Umoya. Since moving to the bay area in 2004, Briget has been a vocalist and percussionist with Kitka Womens Vocal Ensemble, Kaila Flexer, Mariana Sadovska, Linda Tillery, Dan Cantrell, and Amy X Neuburg.
Mary Hofer (clarinet, alto sax, bass clarinet) started studying classical clarinet while growing up in Pennsylvania. Her first exposure to the music of the Balkans was accompanied by the proverbial flash of lightning, leading her to play in Bay Area Balkan bands Voluta Vox, Top Dog Run, and Late Cift. A lively performer, has also played woodwinds with West Arican bands Djaly Kunda Kouyate and Baga Bae.
Larry Leight (trombone, baritone horn) brings over 40 years experience on both Euphonium and Trombone to the band. Larry has played with such bay area legends as Mitch Woods and Lavay Smith. In addition to leading horn sections in such clubs as The Gold Dust , Curtain Call and Café Trieste, Larry Has backed up singers such as Paula West , Kim Nally and Denise Perier. A much sought after soloist for big bands, Larry recently been selected as lead trombonist for the Louis Bellson big band.
Rachel MacFarlane (baritone horn, vocals) has been involved with Balkan music for 30 years, a mania inextricably linked with her passion for Balkan languages, music, dance and domestic arts. Fluent in Serbian and Croatian, Bulgarian and Macedonian, she has used her skills to great effect in such groups as Seattle's Radost Folk Ensemble and the Bay Area's Macedonian folk band Debela Machka. She has been director of the East European Folklife Center for over 10 years. Rachel has made numerous trips to the Balkans, including two recent excursions to brass band festivals in Serbia, where she had the opportunity to work directly with several of today's hottest Serbian Rom brass bands.
Eric Oberthaler (trumpet) is the music director as well as a composer and featured performer for Gamelan X and the One People Voice Company. Eric earned a B.M. from Oberlin Conservatory in 1993 and a M.F.A. from the California Institute of the Arts in 1996. His composition teachers have included Randolph Coleman, Richard Hoffman, Stephen "Lucky" Mosko and Mel Powell. His trumpet teachers have included Adel Sanchez and Steven Emery (classical) and Leo Smith (improvisation). Eric has also studied classical Indian music with Sarod master Rajeev Taranath, and has developed fluency in the world of digital audio as a producer, editor, programmer and recording engineer.
Michele Simon (tupan, background vocals) has been involved with Balkan folk music for over thirty years. After a detour as a modern dancer and actress, over the last 17 years, she has been a vocalist and drummer with a variety of Balkan music groups including Kitka Women's Vocal Ensemble, and the dance bands Anoush, Orkestar Sali and Zabava! Izvorno. She has studied with numerous native-born musicians, and has appeared on recordings and stages across America and in Bulgaria, as well as on Bulgarian National TV.
Randy Trigg (baritone horn, accordion) has performed musical styles from throughout the Balkans for nearly twenty years. He plays tupan and electric bass with Zaedno, and accordion and tupan with Rumeli. He is a former member of Balkan Transit in Denmark, and Nezabravka in the Bay area. Randy has studied with Ivan Milev and other accordion masters in the US and has traveled to the Balkans with members of Rumeli and Balkan Transit.
Alexander Zendzian (baritone horn) first played horns growing up in the Penobscot Valley of central Maine. As an artist based in the Bay Area since 2001 he has studied and performed with dance pioneers Anna Halprin and Sara Shelton Mann, and toured nationally and internationally with Project Bandaloop and Capacitor. Currently, he is a member of the Joe Goode Performance Group.
Evan Stuart (Sousaphone) is a native son of Santa Cruz, CA and was first brought into the Balkan fold by his dear mother Helen. Following a difficult breakup, Evan was convinced by his mom to attend the East European Folklife Center's Balkan Folk Music and Dance Workshop in Mendocino in 2004. As you may have gathered, he was overcome by the amazing music and community spirit and soon began playing in the Bay Area with groups such as The Brash Punks, The Cope Family Band, Zabava, California Kapela, Top Dog Run, and now Brass Menazeri. Besides Tuba, Evan also performs on Tambura, Bass, and anything else he can get his hands on!