Brass ensemble entertains with classical and jazz repertoire

Slide Monsters is an international trombone quartet formed in 2018 by Eijiro Nakagawa (Japan) and Joseph Alessi (United States, principal trombonist of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra since 1985), with Marshall Gilkes (US) and Brandt Attema (the Netherlands).

- Chang Tou Liang

With members from both classical and jazz backgrounds, its Singapore debut was attended by a near-full house of brass practitioners and enthusiasts, both young and old. Although it ran for 90 minutes without intermission, the concert felt much shorter than that.

The evening opened in near total darkness with loud dissonant tones blared through speakers for Florian Magnus Maier's Abyssos as the quartet trooped onstage from the flanks. The long-breathed unearthly utterances at times resembled the growling of large animals in pain, industrial machinery cranking up, or even the deep chants of Tibetan monks.