Roxburgh’s stunning, compact sequence of fanfares and interludes displays the composer’s deep understanding of wind instruments to provide an ensemble showpiece with a powerful individual voice. A real work-out for the band.
Roxburgh’s stunning, compact sequence of fanfares and interludes displays the composer’s deep understanding of wind instruments to provide an ensemble showpiece with a powerful individual voice. A real work-out for the band.
Composed for Linda Merrick and Birmingham Symphonic Winds, African Dances is a continuous work for solo clarinet and wind ensemble consisting of five individual sections, each drawing on different aspects of Pan-African music, including African choral singing.
Category: BIGGIES - Grade 5.0 Composer: Richard Saucedo
Grade 5.0 Duration 2.55
Composed in 12/8 and entirely in one energetic tempo, this masterful work is a musical tribute to the late Sir Malcolm Arnold, one of the most notable English composers of our time. The opening section features a variety of short solo statements of the theme, which then leads to well-timed and impressive declarations from the entire ensemble. Within in the confines of this brief yet impressive work, Richard manages to skillfully capture feelings of both seriousness and playfulness. Along an English Countryside is wonderful as a program opener for festival or contest.
Category: BIGGIES - Grade 5.0 Composer: James Barnes
Grade: 5.0
Gigantic in structure, with fabulously rich and lavishly orchestrated thematic material, this work ranks on a grand scale within the repertoire of the modern-day concert band. Every line is interesting and every player is equally challenged in this bravura work. While not for the timid, Alvamar Overture offers rehearsal and performance rewards worth the effort of preparation. Colossal! (7:41)
Category: BIGGIES - Grade 5.0 Composer: James Barnes
Grade: 5.0
Gigantic in structure, with fabulously rich and lavishly orchestrated thematic material, this work ranks on a grand scale within the repertoire of the modern-day concert band. Every line is interesting and every player is equally challenged in this bravura work. While not for the timid, Alvamar Overture offers rehearsal and performance rewards worth the effort of preparation. Colossal! (7:41)
Category: BIGGIES - Grade 5.0 Composer: Nicholas Maw
American Games describes an Englishman’s view of American life – youth and vigour, city and small-town life, sporting events and outdoor parades. It was commissioned by the BBC and first performed on 23 rd July 1991 at a BBC Promenade Concert at the Royal Albert Hall, London.
Category: BIGGIES - Grade 5.0 Composer: Dwayne S. Milburn
Grade 5.0 Duration 9.45
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American Hymnsong Suite is firmly rooted in my family history as church musicians. I grew up singing and playing many different hymns, including the four tunes featured in this work. The final impetus to compose this particular treatment came during the course of an organ concert in Atlanta, Georgia. One section of the prgram featured innovative settings of three hymns. With the gracious consent of composers Joe Ulterback and Brooks Kuykendalk I adapted their settings to act as the inner movements of the suite, bracketed with my own original treatments of favorite hymns.
Prelude on "Wondrous Love" (" What Wondrous Love is This") opens with a chant-like statement of this Southern tune before proceeding to a more kinetic retelling. Ballad on "Balm in Gilead" features a rich jazz harmonization of this familiar spiritual. The Scherzo on "Nettleton" (“Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" ) contains all the rhythmic playfulness inherent in the best orchestral third movements and the March on “Wilson" (" When We All Get to Heaven" ) calls to mind the wildest marching band ever heard.
While audience members will certainly make various religious connections to this piece, the ongoing goal is to introduce all listeners to the richness of our American musical heritage.
Category: BIGGIES - Grade 5.0 Composer: Simon Dobson
Another World’s Hell was commissioned in versions for brass, wind and fanfare bands by the Société Cantonale des Musiques Vaudoises and the Association Cantonale des Musiques Neuchateloises for the 2013 Swiss Cantonales festivals. It is inspired by a passage in Aldous Huxley’s classic 1932 science-fiction novel Brave New World, which describes in unusually close detail the music that is being played at a dance. This is Dobson’s interpretation of the imagined ‘future music’ that Huxley dreamed of.
Category: BIGGIES - Grade 5.0 Composer: Mark Camphouse
Grade 5.0 Duration 11:00
Composed and orchestrated during the fall of 2007. Anthem is an eleven-minute, single-movement work for full symphonic band. Although it incorporates elements of the national anthems of both the United States and the Republic of Iraq, Anthem is not a "war piece" per se. Rather, it invites the listener to contemplate ramifications of the conflict as it might be viewed by an Iraqi civilian through my setting of Iraqi national anthem, entitled "My Homeland," and by a United States servicemen or woman, with segments of "The Star Spangled Banner" in addition to an originally composed ballad-like theme.
Like most Americans, my admiration for the heroic actions, sacrifices, and humanitarian contributions by our armed forces serving in Iraq is very genuine. Mission accomplished? I think not. My mission, if you will, conceiving and composing this work, was simply one I felt a need to fulfill, both as a musician and as an American. I hope you will find it meaningful.
Category: BIGGIES - Grade 5.0 Composer / arranger: Samuel R. Hazo
Grade 5.0 Duration 6.00
Commissioned by the Indiana Bandmasters Association for the 2008 All-State High School Honor Band, this stunning work from the pen of Samuel Hazo is a tour de force of Middle Eastern sounds for the contemporary wind band. From delicate and sensual soloistic writing to full-blown ensemble passages with rapid fire tutti rhythms and frenzied percussion, here is a rewarding piece with drama and depth that will be the high point of any concert or festival program. Period!
Category: BIGGIES - Grade 5.0 Composer: Giovanni Gabrielli Arrangers: Mark Davis, Scatterday
Grade: 5.0
The current edition of Gabrieli's Aria Della Battaglia was transcribed for the modern orchestra wind section from the Canto Dialoghi Musicali de Diversi Eccelentissimi Autori: Venice 1590. The work is subtitled "per sonare d'instrumenti da fiato" ("to be played by wind instruments") and is one in a long line of such descriptive works dating from the sixteenth century with no instrumental designation whatsoever. The popularity of this genre, however, did not fade with the close of the Renaissance. Rather, a rich development continued into the nineteenth century with Beethoven's Wellington's Victory, the so-called "Battle Symphony," being a latter-day example.
Category: BIGGIES - Grade 5.0 Composer: Giovanni Gabrielli
Grade: 5.0
The current edition of Gabrieli's Aria Della Battaglia was transcribed for the modern orchestra wind section from the Canto Dialoghi Musicali de Diversi Eccelentissimi Autori: Venice 1590. The work is subtitled "per sonare d'instrumenti da fiato" ("to be played by wind instruments") and is one in a long line of such descriptive works dating from the sixteenth century with no instrumental designation whatsoever. The popularity of this genre, however, did not fade with the close of the Renaissance. Rather, a rich development continued into the nineteenth century with Beethoven's Wellington's Victory, the so-called "Battle Symphony," being a latter-day example.
Category: BIGGIES - Grade 5.0 Composer: Alfred Reed
Grade: 5.0 Duration 12.01
Based on authentic Armenian folk songs collected by Komidas Vartabed, this work has been expanded through contemporary use of rhythmic, harmonic and melodic content to showcase the modern wind band. A wonderful staple in wind literature. (12:01)
Category: BIGGIES - Grade 5.0 Composer: Alfred Reed
Grade: 5.0 Duration 12.01
Based on authentic Armenian folk songs collected by Komidas Vartabed, this work has been expanded through contemporary use of rhythmic, harmonic and melodic content to showcase the modern wind band. A wonderful staple in wind literature. (12:01)
Category: BIGGIES - Grade 5.0 Composer: Robert Sheldon
Grade: 5.0
Art in the Park is a four-movement work that musically portrays various styles and techniques used in the visual arts. Musical representations of high energy cubism, dreamy impressionistic aquarelle, the nobility and subtle shadings of chiaroscuro, and a percussion ensemble's rendition of a sgraffito are included, with the orchestration designed to depict the style of the brushstrokes in each painting. This is a very unusual piece with highly diverse content! (8:30)
Category: BIGGIES - Grade 5.0 Composer: Robert Sheldon
Grade: 5.0
Art in the Park is a four-movement work that musically portrays various styles and techniques used in the visual arts. Musical representations of high energy cubism, dreamy impressionistic aquarelle, the nobility and subtle shadings of chiaroscuro, and a percussion ensemble's rendition of a sgraffito are included, with the orchestration designed to depict the style of the brushstrokes in each painting. This is a very unusual piece with highly diverse content! (8:30)
Category: BIGGIES - Grade 5.0 Composer: Robert Sheldon
Grade: 5.0 Duration 8.41
As a Wind from the North was inspired by the writings of Byron Reece and commissioned by the Northwinds Symphonic Band of Gainesville, Georgia (Ronald J. Evans, Conductor), and was premiered at the Georgia Music Educators All-State Conference in Savannah. The piece is a fantasy based on the hymn "King of Glory" by David Charles Walker.
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