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The Performing Arts Society will wrap up its concert season with the bold sound of Chugach Brass this evening at 7:30 Christ Lutheran Churchin Soldotna.

Tickets are $15 for adults, $5 for children, and are avaliable at Northcountry Fair, River City Books, and Sweeney's in Soldotna; Already Read Books, Charlotte's and Old Town Music in Kenai; and at the door.

The performers are Linn Weeda on trumpet, Cheryl Pierce on horn and Dr. Christopher Sweeney on trombone. Dean Epperson will accompany Chugach Brass on piano. The program features a wide variety of composers and arrangements, from Bach and Beethoven, to living composers Eric Ewazen and Robert Muczynski.

As one might guess, it can be difficult to find music written specifically for a trio of brass. The challenge of finding and arranging music for trumpet, horn and trombone promises a unique musical experience with the Anchorage-based group.

Weeda, who is also the music director and conductor for the Anchorage Youth Symphony and the principal trumpet of the Anchorage Symphony, does much of the arranging for the program. Weeda takes on the arrangement for "Be my Love: A Suite of Sixteenth Century French Chansons." Interestingly, the chansons, or "melodies," in the suite would have been sung prior to the invention of the horn as we know it. Before the mid-19th century, the horn would have been a monotone instrument, without the tubing and valves we now recognize in a French horn.

Weeda also arranges two of Bach's fugues. A fugue is a musical form, wherein a melodic subject is introduced and then immitated in several different voices ? though each voice is playing the melody independently of the other voices, the voices must arrange themselves in a cointerpoint that results in harmony. Bach perfected the fugue in his time, and keyboard players even now find themselves playing from Bach's "Well Tempered Clavier," Books I and II. Weeda undertakes the challenge for brass.

Weeda's collaborators in Chugach Brass are equally as busy and highly credentialed as he is. Pierce spent 15 years in Air Force Bands before moving to Alaska in 2006. Since then, she has appeared with the Anchorage Symphony, the Anchorage Opera, Anchorage Concert Chorus, Alaska Chamber singers and the Air Force Band of the Pacific. She is also adjunct horn faculty at UAA. Dr. Christopher Sweeney is Assistant Professor of Music at UAA. In addition to his work teaching brass, Sweeney is involved with the Master of Arts in Teaching for students seeking teacher certification in music. As a clinician and adjudicator, Sweeny has traveled to New Mexico, Florida, North and South Carolina.