Wean

Ellis Wean, originally from Boston, started playing the tuba professionally at the age of 18 when, following a summer at Tanglewood, he played with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring". He continued as Boston's major freelancer while a scholarship student at The New England Conservatory of Music. Ellis joined the Vancouver Symphony in 1989 and has also held positions with the Buffalo Philharmonic from 1970-73 and the Montréal Symphony (l'Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, if you wish) from 1973-89. Ellis won first prize in the Wind category of the 1979 CBC Radio National Competition and the first International Tuba Solo Competition in Markneukirchen, [East] Germany in 1980. In Montréal he was a frequent recitalist and completed three brass quintet recording projects for McGill Records. He is currently a member of the Vancouver Symphony Brass Quintet. Ellis' professional preoccupation has always been how to perform accurately, confidently and musically in performance. To this end, he holds a patent on a line of transparent mouthpieces - for all brass instruments - which allow the player/ teacher to watch the lips, without distortion, while playing. He's also produced a teaching text and video. The video shows different players, highly magnified, with the transparent mouthpieces. Adding a strobe light gives a slow-motion image.