NEWS
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1 year 18 weeks agoBy Bob Karlovits, PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW Saturday, January 7, 2012 Saturday Music, a new program for students in grades five through 12, opens today at the Pittsburgh Creative and Performing Arts School, but still is open to registration. The new program at the Downtown school replaces Saturday programs eliminated by the Board of Education earlier this year and is being offered jointly by the public schools and River City Brass. James Gourlay, the band's general director, says the program is being funded through grants from the Buhl and Grable foundations. Gourlay says he expects 200 students to take part in classes, which will run through May 5. Information on registration is available at www.rivercitybrass.org and www.pps.k12.pa.us. Original Article
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1 year 36 weeks agoStarting his second season leading River City Brass, James Gourlay is pulling from the past and looking into the future. For its season-opening concerts, the band is playing the first piece it performed 30 years ago. But, perhaps more significantly, it has begun an ambitious outreach and education program at Wheeling Jesuit University in West Virginia and added a Beaver County site to its traditional run of concerts. Gourlay says the Wheeling program will be a way of educating students and adults and building an audience. "When you sit next to a musician and come to know him or her, perhaps, you will then return to concerts," he says. The activities would seem to fit in well with Gourlay's new position as general director, which adds educational, outreach and fundraising activities to his musical guidance. Music, obviously is the most telling function of a band, and...
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2 years 46 weeks agoBy Bob Karlovits, PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW Wednesday, May 4, 2011 James Gourlay looks at his first season as music director of River City Brass as a learning experience. "It has been an excellent year and I've enjoyed every minute of it," he says. "I've spent a lot of time learning what the audiences like -- and they are more than willing to tell me." As he enters the last series of concerts, "Summer Barbecue," beginning on Thursday evening, he mentally is filing away the comments offered by listeners "because I try to shape every concert for the audience." He knows pleasing an audience is important. When he was hired just about a year ago, the band was in the midst of a fiscal and attendance crisis, giving Gourlay the test of regaining lost listeners. Band controller Joe Zuback says attendance...
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