Wind Band Report Vol. 5 No. 2a

Jeff Girard and Midwest Sheet Music present

The Wind Band Report

Best of 2016-17

Collegiate edition

Vol. 5, No. 2a June. 2017

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New Wind Band Works, Grade 4-5

I promised 2 follow up emails in my last Wind Band Report, here's number 1. I've assembled some of my favorite Grade 4-5 charts from the 2016-17 school year, focusing on smaller publishers and individual composers you might not have known about. If you want to hear about some grade 1-3 materials, read the version of the Wind Band Report for High School and Middle School directors, also sent out today. If you want to keep tabs on music in that grade level, you can subscribe to that list as well.

First I've got a few announcements and reminders. If you want to just jump to the music, scroll down or click the link above.

Maecenas Music - first update

As I mentioned in my last newsletter, Midwest Sheet Music is now the American distributor for Maecenas Music from England. Nearly all of the Maecenas Music titles are now entered into our website with the new, lower prices. I'll do a separate email on their titles later this summer, but for now you can browse through their titles by searching for "Maecenas" on our website, or you can download a catalog to print and peruse at your leisure.

Recordings and scores for many of these are on the website already, more will be added in the coming days. There's a lot of gems hidden in this catalog that never got proper exposure, like Chris Coleman's Jazz Funeral, Fergal Carroll's Winter Dances, Christopher Marshall's Aue, and many more. I'll talk about some of them in an upcoming newsletter soon.

Chamber Winds added to website

One of the things I've been doing here is keeping a separate file of Chamber Wind literature to refer to for both stock and to help directors find some music. It took me a long time to put this together since leaving Shattinger Music, but I finally have enough of it done to take the next step. I've been able to integrate my database with our website. So there is now a good sized listing of chamber wind works available on our website. Plus, for most of them I have been able to integrate the instrumentation, so you can check to see what forces are called for.

There's still some fine tuning to do in order to get it nice and clean, so take a look and drop me a line if you see anything unusual that I should fix. After starting a search on our website, use the check boxes on the left side to specify "Chamber Ensemble". Of course I can always send you a copy of my personal database if you want to take a more focused look.

Do you teach a Conducting Class

in the fall?

If you teach a conducting class this fall, or have a conducting symposium coming up that I haven't noted yet, I can help get your repertoire list assembled for your students and participants. Just send me a message with the details of your class or symposium, the repertoire needed or suggested, and an approximate number of students. I'll make sure to get all the repertoire into stock, then create a page your students can go to in order to see your rep list and get all their materials at once. I'll send you a link you can send to your students so they can get their music and books easily. Here's an example of what they'll see.

Wind Band Music - Grades 4-6

For you collegiate and advanced high school directors, here are a few more advanced titles that came out this last several months that caught my attention.If you want to see my listing for grade 1-3 music, click here to read my other newsletter for High School and Middle School directors.

Click the image above to see a listing of contents on the flyer, then click any title to listen to it.

Premiere Editions from Midwest Sheet Music

This summer three European publishers, Hafabra, Tierolff, and Hebu, teamed up with me to produce a flyer showcasing some of their best works from the grade 4-6 range. The flyer includes a CD with full length mp3 recordings of all the featured works. To have a copy sent to you, just drop me a line and let me know or remind me to include a flyer in your next order. All of these titles are on our website to listen to, and all are in stock now, so if one of them strikes your fancy you can make a note of it for the fall, or have me set it aside for you.

Remembering Chuck Berry

The musical world lost a legend last Spring when St. Louis legend Chuck Berry passed away. Right until the end, Chuck Berry was still playing gigs at Blueberry Hill restaurant here in St. Louis. I'm sad to say I never got the chance to hear him perform live. If you have a summer band you're working with, you might want to consider this setting of Chuck Berry Highlights I discovered from a very obscure publisher in Europe. The nice thing about the popular music adaptations I find from there is they tend to be more musically advanced than those produced in US that cater to the school band. It includes Roll Over Beethoven; Rock and Roll Music; Sweet Little Sixteen; and Johnny B. Goode.
We will miss St.Louis' musical icon and his impact on the musical world will be cemented in history forever.

Set: $120

Other works, grades 4-6

Click on images to listen

A Copland Portrait

David Conte

Grade 4

Originally for orchestra, the composer did band transcription of his work for the President's Own Marine Band in 2015. Rather than drawing from Copland's music, David created an original piece that evokes various aspects of Copland's works. For example, he describes the first theme as a mix of the character of The Red Pony with the rhythmic texture of the scherzo of the Third Symphony. It's a delightful piece to compliment a Copland or Americana concert, or to use as an opener.

Set $135

The Heart's Reflection

Daniel Elder

Grade 4

This one caught my ear the moment I heard it, but I never had a chance to really give it any exposure. Originally written for eight-part mixed chorus as a sort of tone poem, the composer adapted his work utilizing vibrant colors and textures. Broad and symphonic in nature, it incorporates these wind band tonalities to express the underlying emotions of the original. The variety of textures and instrumental colors enhance the tonal spectrum of the original and bring out the expressive nature of the work.

Set $70

Tilbury Point

Nigel Clarke

Grade 4

Nigel Clarke refers to Tilbury Point as a "whizz-band" portrait overture for band. The idea for the piece came to him after visiting many of East London's ancient riverside pubs along the River Thames. The overture conveys the vibrant feel of the River at Tilbury Point, a site downriver where the pirate Captain Kidd's body was displayed after his execution as a warning to other pirates. Nigel makes use of use of the old Ballad of Captain Kidd, which became popular soon after his death. It's a fun and energetic romp to start or finish a concert.

Set $110

The Great Lightning

Dmitri Shostakovich / Jacques Claessens

Grade 4

The Great Lightning is an unfinished opera sketched in 1932 by Shostakovich of which he only managed to write the overture and 8 following pieces. They are enough to show us that 'The Great Lightning' would have been a sparkling and satirical piece about the visit of a Soviet delegation to a corrupt Western capitalist country, full of deft parodies and catchy tunes that vividly evoke the popular songs and dances of the 1920s and '30s. Three movements are transcribed in this suite.

Set $160

Reflections on an Old Japanese Folk Song

Reflections on an Old Japanese Foilk Song

Philip sparke

Grade 5

Even though this is distributed in the US by Hal Leonard, it came out late last year and wasn't in their initial promotion. Reflections on an Old Japanese Folk Song is based on the tune Suiryo-Bushi, which comes from the shamisen tradition and opens with two contrasting statements of the melody followed by several variations each in an own style based upon the same tune, or sometimes only fragments of it. The final section is in the form of a scherzo, which eventually forms the accompaniment to a final presentation of the folk tune.

Set $145

Andromeda

Saul Gomez Soler

Grade 5.5

I've started to noted Soler's name popping up here and there in requests from some major universities, and I'm starting to see why now. He's got a compositional voice that is engaging and varied. I like that he doesn't seem to be trying to be a niche composer in style. What he does, works. Andromeda draws its incpiration from the classical Greek myth, but is not a literal retelling of the story. Instead Saul uses it as a starting point to construct a musical discourse through a variety of scenes; beautiful, dramatic, charming, intense, all relating back to aspects of the myth.

Set $210

Millennial Inception

Andrew Boss

Grade 5

Millennial Inception is a 3 minute processional-fanfare by a rising young composer, Andrew Boss, who may be currently best known as the composer of Tetelestai. In Millennial Inception, Andrew expresses the combination of uncertainty and hope that infuses his generation. Andrew uses the term "cathartic wash of sound" in describing this piece, and I'd say that description fits well. There are 3 versions of this piece available depending on the forces you have at hand, though if you have all the guns available I'd encourage you to use them all.

Original (antiphonal brass, organ) - $160

Standard version - $150

Lower key (Ab) - $150

Cerebral Vortex

Oyvind Moe

This piece caught my attention when I first heard it, and I wasn't sure why. When I read the composer's notes though, I really connected because I deal with this concept all the time. The title refers to a form of writers block caused not by a lack of ideas, but rather too many ideas swimming about in ones head and an inability to channel them to express something to one's satisfaction. The composer describes it as an exercise in keeping focus, which he does by taking a limited amount of material and then repeating and treating it to create a development that always has a solid anchor point.

Set $155

I've got one more newsletter I'll try to send out in a week with new resources and reference books you can peruse over the summer, and a few other notes. Then I'm off to WASBE in The Netherlands in July, so I should have lots to talk about after that.