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I've been anxious to try the next two horns you'll find below. Both have enjoyed some "good press" recently. The Wessex is in the lower end of the mid-price range that is an important point of discussion these days. The Jupiter XO is in the beginning of the upper price range, and as such has well-established competition slightly above its price.

Jupiter XO
I had two chances to play the Jupiter XO, and my impressions were similar each time. The horn plays well overall, with good ...

JP Sterling
One stop enabled me to try three different horns I was interested in testing: the JP Sterling 4-valve compensating Eb Tuba, 3-valve compensating baritone horn, and 4-valve compensating euphonium. DF Music had all those, and several other horns, on display for testing.

The tuba did not take me very long at all. I quickly discovered that my tuba chops were apparently still back in Minnesota that day. At first the horn seemed stuffy, but then I realized it was my chops ...

I was able to be at ITEC 2014 in Bloomington, Indiana, for three days. That wasn't enough time because there was an unbelievable number of quality presentations, but it was all the time I had available. I did a rather poor job of getting to all those recitals I had highlighted in my schedule and did not see as many old friends as I had hoped (although I also had some great and welcome conversations with the friends I did encounter). On the other hand, I did make good progress on two self-assigned ...

Here is a very lovely song (almost a contemporary American hymn) from the movie by the same name. It is a new movie made by a tiny Christian production company, so it is doubtful that most of you would have seen the movie. The composer is Bruce Broughton (Academy Award winning composer of Silverado and many other soundtracks).

This video is from a church service offertory, so you will hear some background noises. On piano is Sara Brunk. During the service we projected the words on our ...

I finally had a chance to play this while a recorder was running! I arranged it a while back because I thought it was a lovely piece. I also wanted to give folks an easy chance to play a Sousa piece that was not a march.

Sousa wrote Nymphalin for violin and piano, and it has also been performed by band (the Marine Band, for one, but I don't know if it was Sousa's own arrangement or a Marine arranger did it).

This arrangement is sold with two included versions. One is meant ...

There has been so much confusion for soooooo long about the difference between baritone and euphonium that I wrote a monograph a few decades ago, which later become this web page:

http://www.dwerden.com/eu-articles-bareuph.cfm

I think it helped many to understand the technical differences. But there is nothing like seeing and hearing the different horns in action, so I recently recorded on video the same song, played in the same room, recorded on the same equipment, played ...

I recently had the privilege of reviewing a new CD of euphonium music. The artist is John Storey, who is principal and solo euphonium with the Coldstream Guards Band in the U.K.

For U.S. readers who are not familiar with this band, it is roughly the equivalent of a U.S. Military Band. There are several wind bands in the Queen's regiments, including:

• The Grenadier Guards
• The Coldstream Guards
• The Scots Guards
• The Irish Guards
• The Welsh Guards

In the U.S. our service ...

I've always thought that "I Got Plenty o Nothin'" from "Porgy & Bess" makes a perfect euphonium solo, so now I have done a new YouTube video with that song. See if you agree with me.

Like many euphonium players, I grew especially fond of this song from playing the band arrangement of Porgy & Bess, in which this song is introduced by a euphonium solo. But now I've decided to carry it to the next step by doing a complete arrangement of the song. (Of course that means I also get to play ...