Oompah Brass Workshop

On Monday, our senior brass players travelled to Cambridge for an afternoon of work with Oompah Brass, a quintet who made their name with their trademark Bavarian style arrangements of pop songs. The 35 or so participants were put through their paces with an increasingly challenging set of pieces, starting with the Ghostbusters theme, moving onto Queen’s ‘We Are The Champions’ and finishing with a tricky arrangement of Cee Lo Green’s ‘Forget You’. All three pieces were performed with Oompah Brass in an evening concert, at which they gave a lively and inspiring demonstration of virtuosity, including memorable versions of Toto’s ‘Africa’ and Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. The WACS players characteristically took all of the day’s challenges in their stride and managed to impress the professional brass players (one was even offered a job with Oompah Brass, though we think it was a joke…).