In a symphony orchestra, the string players sit at the front, the brass and percussion at the back. Thomas Hoffmann, a percussionist with the orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin since 1977 and its principal percussionist, wanted to reverse this arrangement. In 1989, he founded the Brass Band Berlin, and the idea quickly found supporters from within his own orchestra and from other leading Berlin orchestras.
The motto is "Classic, Jazz & Comedy, Music with Wit, Charm & Tails," and every word of it is meant seriously. Eleven musicians stand on stage, all in tails. Their role models are the shows of the great swing orchestras and especially Spike Jones, who in the 1940s dismantled classical and popular music with horns, pistol shots, and cowbells.
Hoffmann is bandleader, singer, emcee, and percussionist all rolled into one. From his percussion station, he hurries to the xylophone, the microphone, and back to the gong and bell. In between, a warning shot cracks, a rubber duck squeaks, and a horn wails. He plays Khachaturian's "Sabre Dance" himself on the xylophone, and in Bizet's Carmen Suite, the music shifts between samba and ragtime. Meanwhile, a second drummer keeps the groove going, even when the leader honks.
The joke works because the music is precisely executed. The repertoire ranges from Verdi's triumphal march from "Aida" and Ravel's "Boléro" through Bach and Wagner to Glenn Miller and the Beatles. In a ragtime by Euday L. Bowman, three clarinets engage in a musical duel; elsewhere, a wind player uses circular breathing to sustain a note so long that the audience holds its breath. Hoffmann himself has worked with Pavarotti, Carreras, Rolando Villazón, and Anna Netrebko, and has shared the stage with Robbie Williams.
In the Berliner Konzerthaus and the Philharmonie, concerts are regularly sold out; performances are also given at the Hamburger Elbphilharmonie, the Düsseldorfer Tonhalle and the Bremer Glocke. There, on New Year’s Day, the band made its entrance across the parquet floor to “When the Saints Go Marching In,” wearing red bow ties and cummerbunds.
For the Dixieland Festival, the band brings a sound rarely heard: New Orleans played by orchestral musicians. The march to which the musicians make their entrance belongs to both worlds.