Ashfall CD | Nebraska Chamber Players

Special Events

Ashfall CD

Now available...
Nebraska Chamber Players'
first commercial CD!

Four works by Rusty Banks:
Ashfall
Montuno
Lament
Haunted by Waters

To get your copy, contact us at 402.429.8227 or info@nebraskachamberplayers.org. The CD is available for a $15 donation. It can also be downloaded from CD Baby (soon to be available at other online outlets as well).

We are thrilled to announce that our recent Kickstarter project was a complete success! We set a goal to raise $11,000 in 30 days, and were hoping for at least 75 backers to make it a true grass-roots effort. To our great surprise, we reached both goals by day 19! At the end of the 30 days we had raised over $12,000 (including several cash donations) and had over 120 backers!!

In August 2012 we went into the studio and recorded our first commercial CD—an album of works by Rusty Banks, written for and premiered by the Nebraska Chamber Players!

Composer Rusty Banks has been a friend, collaborator and performer with our ensemble since the early days of Third Chair Chamber Players. We offered him his first commission in 1999—a work for six players entitled Montuno. Then in October, 2005, TCCP premiered Lament, a work for string quartet, guitar and alto flute (with Rusty on guitar). In January, 2011, Nebraska Chamber Players presented the Midwest premiere of Haunted by Waters, a trio for clarinet, violin and piano, featuring clarinetist Christy Banks (Rusty's wife), another veteran of TCCP.

Rusty Banks

The centerpiece of this CD is Ashfall, which received its world premiere via live radio broadcast in April of this year. This large-scale chamber work is inspired by Nebraska's historic Ashfall Fossil Beds and the events which transpired there 12 million years ago. It's the first musical work ever written for our entire ensemble and its unique blend of instruments, and the first performance we've done where all of us were on stage at the same time! Ashfall uses a string quartet and a wind quintet, plus double bass, piano, harp, marimba and percussion. But the most unique instrument you'll hear in this work is a music box, with paper strips hand-punched to play the Ashfall themes.

Ashfall came about when we were looking for a way to commemorate our 15th anniversary as a group and our first season under the name of Nebraska Chamber Players. The premiere of a new work written just for us seemed like the perfect solution, and when we approached Rusty, not only did he know exactly what he wanted to write, he wanted to include ALL of our players. This was going to be an expansive piece of chamber music, with sounds befitting the monumental events that inspired it. Our partners at NET Radio decided to make the premiere a monumental event in itself, including brunch, birthday cake, and a special live edition of their show, Nebraska Concerts (streamed worldwide over the internet).

Because of the number of musicians and rehearsal time involved, a performance of Ashfall is an expensive undertaking. We feel very fortunate to have the chance to play it again, thanks to our many Kickstarter backers, and we're especially excited that this music will be preserved on a CD.

To see a video about the project, including composer Rusty Banks' comments about his inspiration for the piece, click here. You can listen to the live broadcast of Ashfall here.

Ashfall premiere
Rusty Banks conducts the Nebraska Chamber Players in the 2012 world premiere of Ashfall.

In partnership with

Radio