In Two Places
Haley Woodrow
One thing you’d never expect to do after graduating from college, getting married and being a homeowner is to move back in with your parents. But, as it turned out, my husband and I found ourselves in this situation in the fall of 2013. Around the same time, I decided to finally follow my gut and go back to school for what I’d always wanted to do – music composition. Having a background as a jazz trumpet player, I luckily landed in a graduate assistantship in the jazz department at Texas Christian University while pursuing my master’s in composition.
As great as it was, I felt pulled in several directions, not having the typical schedule of a composer, but not having the life of a performance major either. In this season of my life, I experienced conflicting feelings attached to experiences with adulthood vs. adolescence, homogeneity vs. diversity, and the jazz approach vs. the contemporary classical approach. I so many ways, I felt literally in two places at once!
In Two Places begins with an oboe feature and utilizes a motivic tambourine part throughout the piece. It is comprised of two main sections, both with strong melodies and a near constant eighth-note motor. Present throughout the composition is a fight between the major and minor modes. The last statement is purposefully written to convey ambiguity.
– Program Note by composer
Journey through Orion
Julie Giroux
Journey Through Orion was commissioned by the Association of Concert Bands (ACB) and premiered at their national conference in 2006 in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. The piece was inspired by images from the Hubble Space Telescope. Giroux elaborates in this excerpt from her program notes:
Photographs from the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex, simply put, are out of this world. Pictures of the Great Orion Nebula, Barnard’s Loop, M78, M43, the Molecular Clouds 1 & 2 (OMC-1, OMC-2) and The Horsehead Nebula never cease to capture my imagination. I have journeyed there many times in my mind, so I decided to sketch that journey with notes. Travel with the music 1,500 light years away into the constellation Orion the Hunter, into the Molecular Cloud Complex and through the Great Orion Nebula where Stars and Ideas are born.
She also refers her listeners to the Hubble Telescope website., which features an ever-updating gallery of these amazing images.
– Program Note from Wind Band Literature
Tirana
Carol Barnett
Tirana was commissioned by the Minnesota Chapter of the College Band Directors National Association as an addition to the grade 3 band literature. It was an interesting challenge to write within the guidelines of accessible keys and easily negotiable ranges. As a departure from the common slow-fast or fast-slow-fast band music forms, I chose to write a series of dances, introduced and interrupted by short fanfares, with the basic tempo steady throughout. The work is tonal, but to avoid boredom I modified the major scales with occasional lowered 2nds, 6ths and 7ths, and raised 4ths. I also included some complex meter patterns which, with the exotic scales, make the piece sound vaguely Southeast-European. Since I hadn’t done any specific research on dance types from that area, I picked a place name at random; hence Tirana.
– Program Note by composer
Fantasy Adventure at the Movies
Arr. Michael Brown
In the best fantasy and adventure films, music always plays an important role in setting the mood and engaging us in the story. Here are some of those iconic moments from movies we all remember. Includes: Theme from “Star Trek;” Back to the Future; Once Upon a Time…Storybook Love (from “The Princess Bride”); The Rocketeer and Theme from “E.T.” (The Extra-Terrestrial).
– Program Note from publisher
Legends of the Galaxy (A Cosmic Fanfare)
Chandler Wilson
Legends of the Galaxy (A Cosmic Fanfare) is a heroic journey from beginning to end, traveling through a harmonic and rhythmic interstellar adventure.
– Program Note from publisher
Jupiter (The Bringer of Jollity) from The Planets
Gustav Holst / Arr. James Curnow
Jupiter, “the Bringer of Jollity,” with its Falstaffian sense of humor, is the most popular of the movements and it conveys the astrological significance of Jupiter as benevolent and generous. Perhaps the cause of its popularity lies in the very English tune which is introduced toward the middle of the movement. Solemn and carol-like, the melody was later arranged as the hymn tune Thaxted, after the village where Holst lived for many years. Adapted to fit a poem by Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, I vow to thee, my country, the music became associated with the strong patriotic feelings resulting from the human cost of World War I. Later, the tune was incorporated in the hymn O God Beyond All Praising. It has even been used as the theme of the Rugby Union World Cup since 1991.
– Program Note from Illinois State University Symphonic Winds concert program, 16 November 2016
Rozana
Reens Esmail
This melody came from a work for choir that I never ended up writing — in that piece, I set a line from the Catholic Our Father: “Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie”, which translates to “Give us this day our daily bread.”
The title, Rozana (रोज़ाना) in Hindi means ‘daily’, or ‘day after day’ – a ritual that becomes part of who you are.
That daily bread, the thing that keeps us sustained, both physically and spiritually, might look different for every one of us. What is your daily bread? What sustains you? And how do you invite it into your life with each new day?
– Program Note by composer
Star Wars Saga
John Williams / Arr. Stephen Bulla
Spanning four decades, the dramatic and memorable themes from the Star Wars movie series have become a treasured part of our musical heritage. This stunning medley for the concert stage features the familiar Main Title along with music long associated with Darth Vader, Han Solo, Princess Leia, and more recently Rey and Kylo Ren as well as the dramatic March of the Resistance.
– Program Note from publisher