Editor’s note: As the Juno Awards 2013 prepare to celebrate the best of Canadian music this weekend, Western Journalism students help us celebrate the best in Western Music. Read the full Music Issue.
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The loud, belting sound of brass fills a classroom at Jack Chambers Public School and spills over into the hallway. The fingers of several players move up and down on clicking valves to recreate the fluttering melodies and plodding march of John Philip Sousa’s Transit of Venus.
The 35 musicians performing it range from teenagers to seniors. But the instruments in the room span a larger range of almost 100 years. Some of the trombones sport brass that shines and twinkles under the light, while others that were once crisp silver are faded and worn, dulled by the oil of countless hands after years of playing.
There are definitely enough instruments to go around. Henry Meredith, the director at the front of the room, has more than 6,000 of them and lends some of them to band members. Meredith, 66, founded the Plumbing Factory Brass Band in 1995, a community band made of high school students and professional performers alike.
Directing the group is just one of his commitments on top of being a professor of brass pedagogy at Western.
Dr. Hank, as his students call him, doesn’t have an exact tally, but believes it’s the largest private collection of brass instruments in North America, some of which are almost 300 years old. The collection even drew Disney’s attention, and he lent them some of his instruments for its 2003 remake of The Music Man.
The collection began when, as a doctoral student, Meredith wandered into the basement of an instrument repair shop in Greeley, Colo., where he found boxes full of old discarded instruments.
“I said ‘I’ll give you five bucks a piece for them.’ I got 20 instruments for $100 and that got me started.”
Meredith, who was nominated for a Juno Award for a production of Handel’s Messiah, doesn’t have a museum or a warehouse for the instruments, so he keeps the collection at home. They have taken over his basement, part of the garage, the loft and much of the house. But he points out he has to keep his wife’s side of the garage free to park in.
“My joke is, she would never divorce me – because she would have to take half of it,” he said.
Meredith’s passion for music started at a young age. He remembers going to a music camp as a high school student where three of the best tuba players in the world were teaching. Watching them put on such complex performances inspired him.
“Three players playing in such a perfect unison,” Dr. Hank said. “By doing that, I’m going ‘This is possible? OK, if this is possible, anyone can do it.’”
After high school, Meredith continued his studies of music. He received a bachelor of music education from Indiana University in 1968. He stayed there to earn a master of music education and specialist certificate in multiple arts. By 1984 he had finished his doctor of arts in music at the University of Northern Colorado.
Meanwhile, after the Plumbing Factory Band’s rehearsal, Meredith joins the players for appetizers and a chance to relax at East Side Mario’s. Surrounded by the laughter of his fellow musicians, Meredith points out that the power of music is its ability to bring happiness.
“(The players) are so alive after a night like this,” he says, looking at the band. “I’m kind of jumpstarted because it’s a rewarding experience that kind of re-energizes you.”