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The Canadian Brass quickly rose to become the world's most popular brass quintet, pioneering a unique and entertaining stage format that has influenced numerous other chamber groups. There were no full-time touring brass quintets when the group formed as an experiment in 1970. At that time, most brass quintet music was played by members of local orchestras or music conservatories.

The impetus for the group came from trombonist Eugene Watts, a native of Sedalia, MO, and a graduate of the University of Missouri. He grew up with a strong interest in jazz, and played traditional Dixieland to help pay for college. After playing in the North Carolina, San Antonio, and Milwaukee symphony orchestras, he came to Toronto at the invitation of the Toronto Symphony's music director, Seiji Ozawa. He is a major contributor to the unique programming for Canadian Brass concerts, which range from traditional classical repertoire to less formal, and often humorous interactions with the audience.

Tuba player Charles Daellenbach is also a founding member. If Watts is the impetus for the group, Daellenbach is the catalyst. He and Watts tend to spark each other's humor, and their in-concert banter is part of the group's distinction. A native of Wisconsin, Daellenbach is from a German family with a long musical tradition. He earned a Ph.D. from Eastman at the age of 25 and was teaching at the University of Toronto when he met Watts.

Trumpeters Bill Philips (1970-1972) and Stuart Laughton (1970-1971) were founding members who became exhausted by the constant touring and subsequently left the group. The two longest tenures, excluding the founders, were Ron Romm (1971-2000), who had been a professional trumpeter in his family's band (the Romm-Antics) from the age of 12, and Fred Mills (1972-1996). Mills intended to be an original member, but could not join for the first year due to contract commitments.

Jens Lindemann, born in Germany but raised in Alberta, Canada, replaced Mills in 1996. He started playing the trumpet in grade school and was inspired by the Canadian Brass, who signed his trumpet case when he was twelve years old. Emulating the Brass, he obtained a gold-plated trumpet. He became soloist in an Edmonton orchestra at 16, and was well established when he joined the Canadian Brass. He brought to the Brass a special facility on the high piccolo trumpet, and also played C trumpet, cornet, and flügelhorn. In 2000, Lindemann left the ensemble to pursue a solo career, and was replaced by Josef Burgsteller.

Ryan Anthony joined the Brass in June 2000 at the age of 31, as a former member of the Cleveland Orchestra and the Indianapolis Symphony. The older Brass members remembered him as the fifteen-year-old member of a quintet that wowed them at a master class performance.

Graeme Page was the original French horn player of the Brass (1970-1983). Succeeding him were Marty Hackleman (1983-1986) and David Ohanian (1986-1998), a founding member of the Empire Brass in 1972.

The lineup for the group since 2011 still includes Charles Daellenbach on tuba, with Brandon Ridenour and Chris Coletti on trumpets, Eric Reed on horn, and Achilles Liarmakopoulos on trombone.

The Canadian Brass has enriched the brass quintet repertoire with many commissioned works and a large number of arrangements of music from the early Baroque onward. The quintet has made over 50 LP and CD releases, and has toured around the world.

Conductor Edo de Waart began his career in the Netherlands but has led orchestras and operatic productions on several continents. He has held several major positions in the U.S., where he received his first big break.

Edo de Waart was born in Amsterdam on June 1, 1941. He grew up in a musical family and took up the oboe as a youth, studying at the Sweelinck Conservatory. He also took conducting and piano courses there, but he focused on the oboe at first, holding associate principal positions with the Amsterdam Philharmonic (now the Netherlands Philharmonic) and the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam. Taking conducting lessons on the side with Franco Ferrara in Hilversum, de Waart made his conducting debut with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic in 1964. That year, he won the Dimitri Mitropoulos Conducting Competition in New York, resulting in a one-year engagement as assistant conductor to Leonard Bernstein at the New York Philharmonic.

He founded the Netherlands Wind Ensemble in 1967, and that year, he became co-music director (later music director) of the Rotterdam Philharmonic, remaining with that orchestra until 1979. In 1977, he became music director of the San Francisco Symphony. One of de Waart's early digital recordings came with that orchestra in 1984, with an ECM performance of John Adams' Harmonium. He continued to champion Adams' music through the 1980s and '90s. In San Francisco, he also mounted a complete performance of Wagner's Ring Cycle operas. From 1986 to 1995, de Waart served as music director of the Minnesota Orchestra.

Back in the Netherlands, de Waart was music director of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic from 1989 to 2004. He served as music director of the Sydney Symphony in Australia from 2004 to 2014, departing partly because he was dissatisfied with the acoustics of the Sydney Opera House. He moved to the Hong Kong Symphony Orchestra, where he served as chief conductor and artistic director from 2004 to 2012. In 2009, de Waart returned to the U.S., settling in the Milwaukee area with his wife, Rebecca Dopp, and becoming chief conductor of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. His tenure there concluded in 2017, but he remains active with the orchestra as conductor laureate.

He also served as chief conductor of deFilharmonie (now the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra) from 2011 to 2016. After several guest appearances, de Waart became the first principal guest conductor of the San Diego Symphony in 2019; he continued to hold that position as of the mid-2020s when he was in his early eighties. Encompassing work with many of the orchestras he has led, de Waart has amassed a vast and varied recording catalog that includes 18th and 19th century orchestral repertory, opera, new works, unusual national traditions (he made several recordings of works by composer Carl Vine with the Sydney Symphony), and Dutch works, such as the ones by Reinbert de Leeuw he recorded with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic on a 2023 release on the Challenge Classics label. By that time, his catalog comprised more than 80 recordings. ~ James Manheim