Eric Crees and I have collaborated since 1997, first with the LSO and since 2000 at the Royal Opera House. A consummate professional, he has been front and centre in making the brass section at the Opera House so wonderful. I’ve had tremendous fun conducting his arrangement of the West Side Story Dances for brass ensemble and percussion - it was fantastic, and I know he’s done many more. A salute to his continued success!

Sir Antonio Pappano, Director of Music, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden

Eric Crees is one the country’s most senior, experienced brass players. He has been a leading player in some of our most distinguished orchestras, but his sphere of influence is by no means confined to his playing. As a teacher,arranger and composer, he is equally well-known both in this country and further afield.

Sir Mark Elder, Music Director of the Halle

Eric Crees is a hugely influential force within the brass and trombone world. As a player he has performed at the highest level internationally and has been at the top of the orchestral scene in London for the past 30 years. His teaching at the Guildhall School has influenced a generation of young players and his ex-students fill most of the Principal Trombone jobs both in the UK and further afield. As an arranger and conductor he has opened a whole new world of repertoire to performers and audiences alike. His enthusiasm and constant enquiry have yielded a legacy to be proud of.”

Jonathan Vaughan, Director of Music, Guildhall School of Music & Drama

Professor Jiggs Whigham, Director BBC Big Band

Philip Biggs, The Brass Herald

John Williams, Film composer

"The very best in brass playing, brass-arranging and brass-recording [American Brass].  A basic ensemble of some 21 brass and percussion players displays every possible skill in the handling of the superlative arrangements by Eric Crees… The arrangements are predominantly of music which lends itself ideally to the project; indeed the Bernstein West Side Story and Copland’s El Salon Mexico come up in places shining in a burnished brass colouring more effective than the original."

Gramophone Magazine

"Watch out for your speakers! [American Brass]  The dynamic range and vividness are stunning, but Eric Crees’ arrangements aren’t half bad either."

Musicweek

"Two excellent CDs of London Symphony Brass [American Brass and Sacred Brass]…. The exhilarating collection of American music … contains mainly works arranged by Eric Crees – and what superb arrangements these are.  West Side Story and El Salon Mexico (arr. Crees) will become classics although my favourite is the delightfully eccentric Variations on America (incorporating ‘God save the Queen’) by Charles Ives."

The Horn magazine

[The London Trombone Sound] …. "London Symphony Orchestra trombonist, Eric Crees was assigned to do the arrangements – another inspired choice….  It’s wonderful, it’s marvellous and it’s the best recording in the series so far – not only because of the sound, which is alternately brassy and mellow and sensuous, but because the arrangements are so well-crafted and the programme so perfectly fits the ensemble.  It’s not easy to successfully mix Eric Clapton’s Layla with Gabrieli, Monteverdi and Mancini (“The Pink Panther Theme”), but Crees, Simon and these fine players convince you that the whole thing is going to work even before the first selection – a dazzling fanfare by Crees – has ended….  And speaking of endings: When was the last time you heard Meredith Willson’s “Seventy-Six Trombones” actually played by 76 trombones?  ….. The ingenious arrangement begins with a sort of fanciful warm-up.  Players are wandering around, snippets of famous classical trombone themes fade in and out.  And then, everything comes together for the rousing finish.  What else can one say?  It’s a smash."

CD Review, USA

[Gabrieli Canzonas & Sonatas Volume I] …. "Sidestepping ‘authentic’ considerations of timbre and ornamentation Eric Crees has concentrated on getting his LSO colleagues to do what they do best.  Using his scrupulously prepared new edition these players, with their long tradition of immaciulate ensemble, give polished and disciplined performances.  The degree of textural clarity achieved reveals the wealth and variety of musical invention in these 16 pieces."

BBC Music Magazine

[Gabrieli Canzonas & Sonatas Volume 1] "classy and unusually revealing...immaculate ensemble, give polished and disciplined performances"                                                                                    

BBC Music Magazine

"Naxos could not have chosen better for their first volume [Gabrieli Canzonas & Sonatas Volume 1] of what promises to be an exciting series."

Penguin Guide

"The London Symphony Orchestra is famed above all for its brilliant brass section. At home in the Barbican, their sound slices through the still air in the wood-panelled concert hall with razor-edged bite, or spreads itself out behind the cheese-wire strings and cool woodwind like a warm, comfortable cushion.

"The section often plays alone - just as it does here on this new Naxos disc, the second of three devoted to the dazzling brass music of the 16th-century Venetian composer Giovanni Gabrieli (1553-1612). The disc gives proof that the Early Music movement is really only about getting brass players to shut up. There is not a narrow-bore horn in sight and yet few would dare to accuse the band of lacking authenticity.

The sound is warm, spacious, squashy and beautifully clean. Period instrumentalists are luck to play a piece without splitting any of the notes and generally one excepts them to do so. But the LSO brass produce tone so shiny and modern that it would seem distinctly odd if any blips or misfires were permitted to pass. The ensemble on the disc is like a shiny, well-lubricated piece of precision engineering, such as one might find under the bonnet of the most expensive cars.The music includes imitative canzoni and more freely composed sonatas with the most delicious counterpoint. Groups of players are set against each other. This was one of the famous features of the music at Venice's St Mark's Church, where Gabrieli was employed. His antiphonal effects are the origins of all techniques of opposition and confrontation, soloist against ensemble and concerto form, in Western music. The disc is a valuable historical document, as well as an inspiring artistic indulgence."

Evening Standard (Rick Jones)

"Starting with the Canzon XVII of 1615 in 12 parts, involving three choirs of instruments, Eric Crees and his brilliant players from the brass section of the LSO demonstrate at once what variety of tone they can produce, with the finest shading of timbre and texture.  Eric Crees in his notes, both scholarly and informative about the younger Gabrieli and his Venetian background, helpfully highlights such original items as the Double Echo Canzon in 12 parts.  Beautiful sound, both clear and atmospheric, not aggressive.  Naxos could not have chosen better for the first volume of what promises to be an exciting series."

The Guardian

"This third and final CD completes a series containing all Giovanni Gabrieli's instrumental ensemble music. We wait to the end of the third disc to hear the smallest scale Sonata a3, followed by the largest and immeasurably grand Sonata a22 (the reverse of the order Gabrieli, or his 1615 publisher, favoured.) the playing, on modern brass, is always dazzling, with some lyrical passages and much luxuriance of technique. The resultant easy and massive sound owes its movement more to the inescapable momentum of a well-working engine, rather than to human volition. The semi-quaver passage-work, rather than being woven into the texture with trochaic swing, stands proud of the substrate like a row of gleaming rivets. And how can every final chord be the last word in triumph? Notwithstanding, there is a palpable feeling for the architecture of the pieces, and exciting performances well worth the listening."

Early Music Review (Stephen Cassidy)

Classic CD

James Manheim, allmusic by Rovi

"There is a feeling of eminence about this illustrious body of windy men and one woman as they take the stage. ..LSO Brass is the successor to the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble as the pre-eminent brass chamber group in this country.  What is most impressive about their playing is their almost intuitive togetherness and the extraordinarily diverse range of tone colour they achieve.  You will even swear you hear clarinets, strings, even the human voice"

Evening Standard

"Judging by the turn-out at the Barbican, the London Symphony Brass Ensemble have built up their own large following… Charles Ives’s Variations on “America”  (actually our own national anthem), originally written for organ, adapted wonderfully well to brass: this version by the conductor, Eric Crees, made the most of Ives’s irreverence… The execution of the ensemble was impeccable, their stamina amazing, their high spirits irresistible.."

The Guardian

"The LSO Brass featured exclusively in the first  half.  Their programme included Spitfire Prelude and Fugue (Walton), Suite from the Fairy Queen (Purcell) and Prelude and Fugue on BACH (Liszt) – all superbly arranged by conductor Eric Crees….. The Quality was as one would expect from this illustrious group.  Their use of short multi-movement works and variations in seating provided ample contrast in tone, colour and acoustic perspectives.  This ranged from brilliant antiphonal displays to imaginative scoring including the use of two flugel horns."

The British Bandsman

"Their conductor [Guildhall Brass] Eric Crees’s 10-part arrangements, piccolo trumpet and all, have got Warlock buttoned up.  Warlock, who had only half a dozen euphoniums and things to jot for; would have been aghast with admiration.  These brilliant and sympathetic arrangements are classics in their own right.."

Independent

The Paviors Livery company dines each year in the Egyptian Room at the Mansion House with the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs as our guests. This Banqueting Hall contains a balcony running three sides of the Hall.

As Master of the Company in 2000, I asked Eric Crees whether he could arrange to play some music during and after the dinner. He suggested music by the Venetian renaissance composer Giovanni Gabrieli and appointed twelve of the best brass musicians in London, The Symphonic Brass of London. He arranged them in three groups on the three sides of the Hall to mimic the arrangement Gabrieli would have employed in Saint Mark’s Church in Venice.

The result was a superb and special sound which reverberated around the Hall to the great appreciation of the liverymen and their guests. He also composed some music based upon the initials of the then Lord Mayor, the score of which was presented to Sir Clive Martin at the end of the evening.

John Cruse, The Paviors Livery Company

"This arrangement [Bach Toccata and Fugue in D minor] for brass ensemble by Eric Crees showed off the musicianship and flexibility of the performers and captured the different timbres that can be created by skilful grouping of instruments and careful mute and percussion effects. "

The Brass Herald

[The Birth of Conchobar with the Royal Opera House Soloists] from start to finish it was extremely exciting, especially the use of percussion. The building of textures grew ever so slowly, resulting in hearing the brass at full pelt, which in the Floral Hall was spine tingling and most certainly had me on the edge of my seat. This was a fantastic ending to the first half.

The Brass Herald

"Eric Crees, had made special arrangements for the ensemble [LSO Brass] of the Variations on “America” by Charles Ives, treated with some tongue in cheek innovations of instrumental effect and of Peter Warlock’s Capriol Suite.  The latter’s medieval dance tunes in a modern guise actually sound more lively and boisterous than in Warlock’s own string orchestra version, and they were played here with infectious rhythmic spirit."

The Times