I love the Christmas season!  That probably has a lot to do with the origin of the Holiday Horns story and where that project is today.  For the full version of the story- keep reading.  For the short version- read this next sentence and then skip the rest:

Holiday Horns have just released a single (Thanksgiving) and an album (December) on all streaming platforms. Listen to them wherever you get your music.

Now back to the full story.

I used to play with a brass quintet called Bravura Brass. At a certain point, it became difficult to get the brass caroling, Christmas gigs we were used to because businesses and shopping areas reduced their budgets for those kinds of things.  

I enjoyed those gigs and wanted to keep doing them.  I figured that a brass duo could accomplish the same task for the venue at a cheaper price- and would also pay the musicians more. So, I started writing a few holiday brass duets, just to see how it went.  It was fun writing for just 2 parts; one part was melody anyway so all I needed to write was one harmony line. I was having a great time writing the duets and kept at it; sporadically going at a furious pace, then cooling off and doing nothing for several weeks.

About that same time, I got a call to put a brass duo together to perform on the Santa Trains at The Strasburg Railroad, not far from my home in Lancaster County, PA. The train people definitely wanted a French horn to be part of the duo, not just because of the sound, but also because it “looks classy and Christmassy”.  So I called Jill Graybill, the French horn player from Bravura Brass.

The next Christmas season, we used my arrangements on the railroad and it worked great.  I had been writing them so that they would work for almost any combination of 2 brass instruments. A year or two later, the Santa Trains expanded and we needed to hire additional duos to cover the trains- so that flexible instrumentation aspect became critical.  Things continued to go well and we’ve been using my Holiday Horns book on the trains for about 18 years now.  

I kept writing, and now there are over 100 Holiday Horns brass duo arrangements- from sacred carols to the most popular holiday classics. 

I’ve received good feedback on the arrangements from other musicians and listeners, and always had intended to sell them as sheet music at some point.  So, in preparation for that,  Jill Graybill and I started meeting once a month at Parallel Productions in Willow Street, PA to record demos of each duet.  We started in January of this past year and finished in October.  I like listening to the demos! Each tune is short, and if you run them together, it’s like a non-stop parade of classic holiday melodies.  

Releasing music digitally to streaming platforms is very inexpensive, and with the recording work already done, I decided to release the Holiday Horns sessions for others to enjoy as well. Each track on the album is a medley of several tunes, so finding specific melodies is pretty tough- it’s best just to pick a track and roll with whatever tunes are in there.  I released half of the material this year and will release the other half next year.  

The recordings are still demos, not CBS Masterworks quality, but good enough to add some holiday ambience as you go about your day.

Find Holiday Horns on your favorite streaming platform, and stay tuned for news on publishing.  I hope for the whole collection to be available as digital sheet music by the end of 2025.

Here is a YouTube link to one track of the album “December, and the single “Thanksgiving”.

This article originally appeared on the blog at toddfulginiti.com. Visit that site for more information on Todd’s music, bands, booking, etc… Follow Five O’Clock Shadow for Todd’s more creative writing and blog entries.