Here we are, then, and I’m really proud to present our CD to you – JOYFUL NOISE. the product of a tremendous collaboration and the confluence of a range of musical currents. In 2021, Challenge Records gave me the opportunity to conceive and produce a new CD. I had previously completed a project with the Ravelli Brass septet and ace drummer Arie den Boer. My roots are in the world of brass bands and I really wanted to let those roots shine through. Wouldn’t it be great to make a CD with this classically trained septet? My previous experiences with Holland Baroque and the Calefax reed quintet had shown me that my own free approach to music could work really well and powerfully in symbiosis with the classical style. Marcel Landman at Challenge Records also thought this was a great idea, and so we got to work. Of course, we needed some music for this venture, and that proved a bit of a ‘challenge’! I had enough compositional ideas but the art of arrangement was a completely new world to me. It turned into a ‘learning by doing’ process, and in that learning process I was lucky enough to get help from some of my very experienced arranger colleagues. My heartfelt thanks go out to bass trombonist Dick Bolt, trumpeter Thomas Geerts and trombonist Bernard Hunnekink. The chemistry kept bubbling away at our live concerts and we started recording in early 2022 at the Vereeniging in Nijmegen.

This whole adventure has led to the release of this CD and I’m really proud of my first proper brass CD. It’s been made possible by Challenge Records, the wonderful brass sound of Ravelli Brass, of course, Arie de Boer and the Cantus Firmus Concertproducties Foundation.

I hope that you also feel this music makes a ‘JOYFUL NOISE’! Eric Vloeimans