Before a crew can battle, it must first perform a choreographed piece that is judged in part on innovation and often involves complex choreography in unison and a theme or narrative that expands on the basic rocking moves.
First they all played the theme in unison, with no percussion.
The second part of the piece begins with a mournful theme in unison that thickens into consciously Brahmsian textures.
Mr. McHenry and Mr. Stillman played most of the themes in unison, but otherwise they took divergent paths within Mr. Motian's music.
Though marked "celebratory and joyful," it begins with a stern theme played in unison before all the instruments take off in fantastical elaborations of that theme.
The impassioned first movement is concise and elusive, with an assertive main theme played in unison followed in short order by a contrasting choralelike theme of hazy, unsettled chords.
"Hub Tones," arranged as was the rest of the program by David Weiss, was one of several numbers in which all four trumpeters played the theme as a unison fanfare, a particularly effective idea on winding themes like this one.
When the musicians broke into the first, unison fortissimo statement of the main theme, they played with uncanny precision and clear delineation of the sputtering dotted-note rhythms.
Unison leaders had called the idea "sick".
