Second Nature - album cover

Second Nature

Justin Weiss composer
Sara Jacovino composer
Hitomi Oba composer
Carle J. Wirshba composer
Lillian Yee composer
Rich Shemaria composer

Calliope Brass
Olivia Pidi Weiss trumpet
Rebecca Steinberg trumpet
Erin Paul Ozolins horn
Sara Mayo trombone
Samantha Lake tuba

Release Date: November 8, 2024
Catalog #: NV6672
Format: Digital
21st Century
Chamber
Brass Ensemble

As a musical ensemble and non-profit organization, Calliope Brass flourishes in its joint mission of cultivating both entertainment and education. And with the freshly-commissioned contemporary works on SECOND NATURE, this vibrant ensemble proves that innovation lies at the very core of its existence. 

Leaning heavily into tailor-made commissions can be an artistic gamble for any musical group, but in this case it pays off. The compositions’ motives are diverse in their representations of nature — meditations on mushrooms, Greek mythology, and modern dating, to name a few — but the performance given by Calliope Brass is one thing only: comprehensively flawless.

Listen

Hear the full album on YouTube

Track Listing & Credits

# Title Composer Performer
01 Intersections Justin Weiss Calliope Brass 2:46
02 A Garden Story: Part 1: A Late Winter Hymn Sara Jacovino Calliope Brass 2:27
03 A Garden Story: Part 2: Enter the Deer Sara Jacovino Calliope Brass 2:53
04 A Garden Story: Part 3: The Pollinators Sara Jacovino Calliope Brass 3:13
05 A Garden Story: Part 4: Everything Goes to Sleep Sara Jacovino Calliope Brass 3:36
06 Mycelium Stories Hitomi Oba Calliope Brass 7:57
07 Artemis: Goddess of the Hunt Carle J. Wirshba Calliope Brass 4:42
08 Miracles of the Human Condition: 1. First Meeting Lillian Yee Calliope Brass 1:52
09 Miracles of the Human Condition: 2. Argument Lillian Yee Calliope Brass 4:33
10 Miracles of the Human Condition: 3. Commitment & Healing Lillian Yee Calliope Brass 3:03
11 Miracles of the Human Condition: Coda: Celebration of Marriage Achievement! Lillian Yee Calliope Brass 1:11
12 Pandora's Magic Castle Rich Shemaria Calliope Brass 5:52

Recorded January 9–13, 2024 at Corson Auditorium in Interlochen MI

Session Producer Erik Saras
Session Engineer Michael Culler
Editing, Mixing & Mastering Michael Culler

Executive Producer Bob Lord

VP of A&R Brandon MacNeil
A&R Jeff LeRoy

VP of Production Jan Košulič
Audio Director Lucas Paquette

VP, Design & Marketing Brett Picknell
Art Director Ryan Harrison
Design Edward A. Fleming
Publicity Kacie Brown
Digital Marketing Manager Brett Iannucci

Artist Information

Calliope Brass

Ensemble

American quintet Calliope Brass collaborates with the world’s most prominent creatives to build evocative, story-driven concert experiences for a variety of audiences. Inspired by the eponymous storytelling muse in Greek mythology, Calliope Brass (pronounced “Kuh-LIE-uh-pea”) is most known for its innovative approach to creating interactive concert experiences. As a registered nonprofit, Calliope has been awarded grant funding for performance and educational programming since its founding in 2015.

Olivia Pidi Weiss

Olivia Pidi Weiss

Trumpet

Trumpet player Olivia Pidi Weiss is an active freelancer in the New York Metropolitan area. She has enjoyed a number of musical performances at Broadway, Off-Broadway, and Regional theaters including the St. James Theater, The Public Theater, and The Paper Mill Playhouse. Most recently, Pidi Weiss held the first trumpet chair at Paper Mill’s 2023 production of Fiddler on the Roof and the trumpet chair at The Shakespeare Theatre of NJ’s 2024 production of A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder. She was the trumpet fellow of APEX Ensemble (formerly The Montclair Orchestra) and she has performed with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Reading Symphony Orchestra, and National Concerts Orchestra. Pidi Weiss is a member of the NYC quintet Calliope Brass and frequently performs as a member of the New Jersey Symphony Brass Quintet. Pidi Weiss studied at Manhattan School of Music and Oberlin Conservatory. In addition to performance, Pidi Weiss completed a bachelor’s degree in musicology, with studies focused on early music and musical notation development.

Rebecca Steinberg, Trumpet

Rebecca Steinberg

Trumpet

Based in New York City, trumpet player Rebecca Steinberg has a career marked by her warm, inviting sound and stylistic versatility. You can find Steinberg in the pit of New York City’s many theater productions, performing alongside her brass quintet Calliope Brass, and teaching music both privately and in the classroom. Steinberg currently holds a trumpet chair in the Tony-nominated Broadway musical SUFFS. In  2023 she held a trumpet chair in the Tony-winning Broadway musical New York, New York. Other notable appearances include SUFFS (The Public Theater), Sound of Music, Sister Act, and Jolly Holiday (Paper Mill Playhouse), City Center Encores! Off-Center production of  Stephen Sondheim’s Road Show, Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish at Stage 42, and two National  Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene productions: The Sorceress and The Golden Bride.

Steinberg’s most passionate and impactful work is with Calliope Brass, an ensemble who  collaborates with the world’s most prominent creatives to build evocative, story-driven concert  experiences. Steinberg won the 2018 Liz Swados Inspiration Grant, an annual award honoring  influential female music educators in New York City, on behalf of Calliope Brass. In addition to  playing the trumpet with Calliope Brass, she also served as Executive Director for the 501c3  organization from 2020–2023. 

Besides theater and chamber music, Steinberg enjoys a variety of freelance work with other  ensembles including Contemporaneous, TILT Brass, Metropolis Ensemble, Washington Heights  Chamber Orchestra, and Isle of Klezbos, to name a few. In June 2023, she performed the world  premiere of Adolphus Hailstork’s Concertino for Trumpet and Orchestra with The Chelsea  Symphony. Television credits include Adele at Radio City Music Hall, The Late Show with  Stephen Colbert, Good Morning America, The Tony Awards, and on-screen in the Emmy-winning  television series Mozart in the Jungle (orchestra member throughout seasons 2 and 4). Steinberg studied at Manhattan School of Music and serves as the Director of Brass at the Dwight Englewood School.

Erin Paul Ozolins, Horn

Erin Paul Ozolins

Horn

Erin Paul Ozolins is a New York based French hornist, known for a versatile performance career, as a co-founder of the nonprofit ensemble Calliope Brass, and the host of Doublers Podcast. With a mantra of “have horn, will travel,” Ozolins’ diverse resume includes Broadway, Carnegie Hall, the Las Vegas Strip, barns in France, historic theaters in Eastern Europe, and with major artists including Andrea Bocelli, Josh Groban, and Marie Osmund. As a classical artist, she has appeared with the Sarajevo Philharmonic, Opera Tampa, Las Vegas Philharmonic, Palm Beach Symphony, Florida Grand Opera, and the New Haven Symphony.

Ozolins’ artistic flagship project is Calliope Brass: a nonprofit ensemble that presents innovative and exciting performances for all ages. Since its founding in 2015, the quintet continues to commission composers both established and new, along with collaborating with creatives from disparate genres and disciplines. She also produced and hosted the podcast Doublers, highlighting musicians with secondary careers in other fields. In addition to her horn playing career, Ozolins also works in data analysis for a tech company. 

Ozolins holds degrees from The Hartt School (B.M.) and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (M.M.). During her time as an educator, she was on faculty at two elite secondary schools in the New York City area: Kent Place School and Horace Mann School. Her principal teachers include Daniel Grabois, Peter Reit, and Bill Bernatis. 

Based in northern New Jersey, she lives with her husband, hornist Aleks Ozolins, and their dog Rudy.

Sara Mayo, Trombone

Sara Mayo

Trombone

Sara Mayo is a native of the Pacific Northwest who now splits her time between the West and the East Coast, and therefore now mostly lives in the sky. On the left side of the country, she is the principal trombonist of the Yakima Symphony, and has also previously performed with groups such as the Pacific Northwest Ballet, Symphony Tacoma, the Spokane Symphony, and the Eugene Symphony. On the right side of the country, she works as a freelancer in New York City. She is the tenor trombonist of Calliope Brass and regularly performs with other groups such as the Washington Heights Chamber Orchestra, the Chelsea Symphony, and anyone else who’ll hire her.

She has appeared as a featured soloist with the Yakima Symphony and the Tacoma Community College Concert Band, and has also appeared as a musician extra in Mozart in the Jungle, though she has no idea in what capacity because she refuses to watch the show. If you do watch the show and you see her in the trombone section, please let her know which episodes so she can tell her long-suffering parents.

When not playing trombone, she doesn’t really know what to do with herself, but can sometimes be spotted knitting, folding origami cranes, reading genre fiction, and having opinions about coffee.

Samantha Lake, Tuba

Samantha Lake

Tuba

Dr. Samantha Lake is a freelance performer and educator in New York City. While performing tuba in multiple ensembles including Calliope Brass, the Radio City Christmas Spectacular Orchestra, Norwalk Symphony Orchestra, and the Ridgefield Symphony, Lake has also earned recognition as a soloist. Her passion for solo performances was ignited when she won the Young Artist Solo Competition in New London CT in 2012, resulting in a solo performance accompanied by the U.S. Coast Guard Band. In the past few years, she has won the Rutgers Concerto Competition, Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp Staff Solo Competition, and University of Connecticut Concerto Competition, and placed second in the Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra Instrumental Competition.

Also passionate about her work as an educator, she teaches at Kutztown University and Grace Church School and works with many students of all ages with Calliope Brass. This summer, she is excited to join the faculty of Luzerne Music Center. Previously, she has served as a Morse Teaching Artist fellow and Music Advancement Program Fellow. Holding leadership roles in university and high school ensembles, Lake has also conducted rehearsals and led by enthusiastic example. Lake has taught group and masterclasses at Sichuan Conservatory of Music, University of Connecticut, Ohio University, Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, and various public schools. 

Lake is from southeastern Connecticut and graduated with a Master of Music degree from the Juilliard School and a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Connecticut. She recently earned her Doctorate of Musical Arts from Rutgers University and her doctoral research led to presentations at VTEC 2021 and IWBC 2022 on the exclusion of high voices in tuba multiphonic repertoire and the commission of two works for unaccompanied tuba. Her principal teachers are Alan Baer and Gary Sienkiewicz.

Notes

The impetus for recording SECOND NATURE grew from a collection of new works that Calliope Brass was involved in commissioning. Eager to bring new works for brass quintet into the world, Calliope led its first commissioning consortium in 2022, inviting NYC-based composer and trombonist Sara Jacovino to write a multi-movement work for the group. An accomplished jazz artist and gardener, the resulting composition from Jacovino merged the world of jazz harmony with the natural inspirations of her rather impressive, abundant garden. Excited to share this unique piece with a wider audience, the ensemble took stock of a myriad of new works that the group helped bring to life, both through direct commissioning and consortium commissioning alongside brass quintet peers, and discovered a connecting thread: music reflecting and celebrating nature.

The album opens with Justin Weiss’ Intersections, an energetic, textural exploration of the conversion of melody into harmony, and harmony into melody. Next, Jacovino’s A Garden Story will transport listener’s through the seasons and life cycle of the garden, featuring distinctive leitmotif-like motives to represent the curious deer, the buzzing pollinators, the gardener herself, and even a pesky mole. Hitomi Oba’s Mycelium Stories likewise draws on natural inspiration, this time from the dynamic networks of mycelium fungal threads that connect the organisms in a network. The composer notes the similarities between these connections and the relationships and communications that occur between the members of a chamber ensemble, and draws on this idea of varied melodic material spinning around each other, sometimes converging and sometimes growing apart. Carle Wirshba’s Artemis: Goddess of the Hunt inspires mythological wonder through a glimmering opening chorale that grows to a galloping sprint, replete with hunting horn calls. Lilian Yee’s Miracles of the Human Condition touches on another side of nature: human nature. Exploring the stages of a romantic relationship, Yee’s work spans the gamut of style, from mellow lyricism to an agitated samba, evoking an experience of the ups and downs of human emotions. To close the album, Rich Shemaria’s Pandora’s Magic Castle features a driving tuba bass-line and Latin-inspired rhythmic syncopation to paint a musical picture of the mystique of the mythological box.

Calliope Brass is grateful to Interlochen Public Radio for making this recording possible through its Ensemble-In-Residence Program, which allowed the ensemble to retreat to northern Michigan to record this album with the support of the station’s stellar staff.

Videos

“Pandora’s Magic Castle” by Rich Shemaria
From Calliope Brass’ 5th Annual Benefit Concert on November 15, 2022