Kaiser Ensemble to perform rare tuba quartet at Võru festival

International tuba quartet Kaiser Ensemble will perform at the Eduard Tamme Brass Festival in Võru, ERR reported. The ensemble includes Estonian tuba player Toomas Oskar Kahur, who is studying in Hannover for the third year.

The quartet also includes tuba players from Spain, China and South Korea. All four musicians study at the University of Music, Drama and Media Hannover under Professor Jens Bjørn-Larsen.

Kahur said on Klassikaraadio’s Delta programme that studying in Germany was distinctive because of the country’s strong brass instrument tradition. He considers the tuba class in Hannover one of the strongest in Europe.

“I have a clear feeling that I learn as much, if not more, from my classmates and fellow students as from my teachers,” Kahur said.

Kaiser Ensemble was formed last year for an international brass ensemble competition in Ljubljana, where it placed sixth. It was the only quartet in the competition made up entirely of tubas.

According to Kahur, a chamber ensemble consisting of four tubas is very rare worldwide because little repertoire exists for it and finding players of the same standard is difficult.

The festival programme will include music written specifically for tuba quartet as well as arrangements, including an arrangement of an organ concerto by Johann Sebastian Bach and the overture to Leonard Bernstein’s Candide. Some arrangements were made by members of the ensemble and others by tuba players.

In addition to the concert, the members of Kaiser Ensemble will give masterclasses and ensemble lessons for young tuba players at the Võru festival. Kahur said he wanted to bring the ensemble to Estonia for the first time specifically to Võru because the festival had been important in his own development as a musician.

“I have received a great deal of encouragement and motivation from there. I hope that if a young musician comes to hear our concert, they too will find ideas and inspiration to continue with this,” Kahur said.

Kahur also stressed that the tuba is not only an orchestral instrument. “The tuba can be a solo instrument, an ensemble instrument, an orchestral instrument, a jazz instrument, whatever. It is an instrument like any other,” he said.