Onyx Brass

Over the course of three decades Onyx Brass has established itself among the foremost brass ensembles both in Britain and internationally, while generating an extensive catalogue of new scores from contemporary British composers.

Formed in 1993 under the influence of the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble, the quintet set out to create chamber music that balanced seriousness with accessibility. Its players have held positions in the Royal Ballet Sinfonia, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the English Chamber Orchestra. The ensemble has performed in every major British concert hall as well as in Borneo, and it has frequently collaborated with vocal forces that include the Choir of Selwyn College, Cambridge, the Brighton Festival Chorus, the BBC Singers and the St. Bride’s Church Choir. Among the composers it has commissioned are Thea Musgrave, Michael Nyman, John Tavener, Judith Bingham and Trish Clowes. Its first recording, Pavans, Fantasias, Variations, appeared on Meridian in 2002.

Subsequent discs have been made for Regent, and several aurally detailed albums have been issued on Chandos; the 2018 Chandos release Fanfares presented fifty-eight examples of the form by twentieth-century British composers. Educational commitments remain central, encompassing master classes and workshops for the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, the Royal Welsh College of Music, the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, the Juilliard School and the Boston Conservatory. These activities and concert work converged in Bob Chilcott’s A Sporting Chance, scored for brass quintet, school choir, actors and dancers. Onyx Brass has served as ensemble-in-residence at Imperial College, University of London and at the Westminster Abbey Choir School. During the COVID-19 pandemic the group remained active, joining the Winchester College Chapel Choir for the 2020 Signum Classics album A Winter’s Night: Christmas Music for Choir, Brass Quintet & Organ, issuing Festmusik: A Legacy on Chandos in 2021 and returning on NMC in 2023 with The Sun Is Free to Flow with the Sea.