Brass and Electronic Dance Music
Electronic music has been around sinced the second half of the 20th Century. Society took note of this genre with the music of disco. Then in the 1980s, dance clubs took on a new genre with electronic dance music (EDM). As this music catapulted first in Europe and then the US, the mainstream outlets were hesitant to allow this music heard due to its associations with the drug culture that was becoming prevalent in society. To combat this, people would just call EDM, “dance” music.
As the turn of the millennium occurred, EDM began to be more accepted as art and not just a trend hitting the clubs of the world. One such artist who has helped this genre of music come to the spotlight is Deadmau5 (pronounced “Dead mouse”), the professional name of Joel Thomas Zimmerman from Toronto, Canada. In 2010, Deadmau5 composed a 10-minute piece of music that gives an example of the ebb and flow that we see all the time in music.
Where the beauty of creativity comes into play is when classically-trained musicians decide they want to do a cover song of this popular anthem. Enter the Canadian Brass. In 2013, this brass quintet sat down in Toronto’s York School to produce and record their version of this work. The result, released in January of 2017, is truly a masterpiece! In celebration of Canada’s 150th anniversary, this new cover brings together two of this country’s great musicians to the spotlight of what creativity, and positive risk can do. As some groups have also started this collaboration, hopefully other ensembles will continue to push the envelope of what we call art.
To learn more about this project, click this link.
To listen to the Canadian Brass version of this song watch the video below:
