The ART OF BRASS Quintet, formerly the Oculus Brass Quintet, was founded in 1981. In a single decade these young virtuosos have blazed an entirely new trail with their bold and pioneering spirit and flawless technique.

Inside Austria, they have performed in the Vienna summer season of concerts, at the Festival of Vienna, the "Styriarte", the "Carinthian Summer" and the Innsbruck Summer Festival; they have also toured Japan, Taiwan, USA, Brazil, India, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Egypt, Italy, Greece, Germany, Switzerland, France, Luxembourg, Hungary and the Czech Republic. Both audiences and music critics everywhere have been fascinated by their distinctive and highly contrasted programmes. Their repertoire ranges from Renaissance and Baroque to Jazz and avant-garde music.

The international music magazine "Brass Bulletin" testified to the "brilliant technique" displayed by the Quintet in their CD "That´s Brass", which appeared in 1990. "Crossing new frontiers- the acme of virtuosity and perfection" was the banner headline under which the German Nordwestzeitung reported on the second concert in the "5th International Master Course in Chamber Music for Brass" organized in Jever in 1993. - "In the Jever City Church, ART OF BRASS brought an audience of connoisseurs to their feet in a burst of tumultuos applause", the Wilhelmshavener Zeitung commented.

In 1989, the members of the ART OF BRASS Quintet joined forces for the first time with friends from leading Austrian and foreign orchestras at a Vienna summer - season concert in the great hall of Vienna´s Konzerthaus. "It cannot be denied that ART OF BRASS is still in the very front rank of brilliant and highly musical virtuoso ensembles, even in its expanded form" (Wiener Zeitung). Die Presse commented: "The ensemble´s virtuoso playing was still clearly evident when the brass was supported by a percussion section, while Handel´s Music for the Royal Fireworks and Moussorgsky´s Pictures at an exhibition lost none of their charm. The performance was ecstatically received by the audience". The Wiener Zeitung descried the concert as a "triumph".

In 1990, the ensemble presented a programme of sharp musical contrasts at the opening of the "HAAS- Haus" on the Stephansplatz in the heart of Vienna; the first part of the pogramme was devoted to the Baroque splendour of Handel´s Music for the Royal Fireworks and in the second part Art of Brass struck a new note in contemporary music for brass, with their renderings of jazz and Austrian avantgarde works.

During work on its CD "LATTER DAY" of works by avant- garde Austrian composers, the ensemble decided to change its former name of Oculus Brass to ART OF BRASS, as a better reflection of the ensemble´s musical philosophy - a sensitive and thougtful approach to the music of the most widely diverse epochs.