A REPORT OF MUSIC AT SCHOOL BAND LEVEL

The conference season is over, and I am back in the throes of an English summer, with daily monsoons adding to the flood misery throughout the country. All four conferences, WASBE in Killarney and Stuttgart, BASBWE in Glasgow and CBDNA in Ann Arbor, were superbly organized, with a number of excellent bands playing some terrific music, but while it gets easier to find great repertoire for the professional, conservatoire or university groups, the search for similar repertoire for the less experienced is still a challenge. With up to fourteen hours a day listening to music or to composers, my choice of music for High School band may not always be rational, but there are works here which I think are worth exploring.

Edwin Roxburgh was hailed by Nadia Boulanger as the new Stravinsky; he does not compromise, his musical language is tough and exacting, but his music repays study. Aeolian Carillons is a second piece for school band, following Time’s Harvest, and both need a Grade 4/5 group. In contrast, Fergal Carroll is a former school band director, and writes grateful music at about Grade3-4. If your students enjoy Song of Lir they will also enjoy Blackwater and Silver Winds, not played at any conferences but recently published also by Maecenas. He scores gratefully and writes user-friendly music with a touch of Irish rhapsody which will please your audiences.

MARCO PÜTZ
I have long been an admirer of Marco’s music; his large works for amateur, college or professional bands, Prae Monitio and Meltdown are both very exciting, as are his concertos including the most recent for Trumpet. The three works listed here from repertoire sessions and concerts are well worth tackling for a band at about Grade 4. Choralis Tonalis is an especially ingenious and sometimes taxing delve into keys which a Grade 3 band might prefer to avoid, very valuable.

LYRICAL MUSIC FOR SCHOOL BAND
While it is relatively easy to find exciting and energetic music for the less experienced band, too many composers drop into sentimentality all too easily. A movement which I found quite beautiful was the second movement of Guy Woolfenden’s new Divertimento, a traditional three movement work with a slightly contemporary feel to the first and a cheerful bounce to the third. Guy came to BASBWE and WASBE and wore his seventieth birthday lightly, conducting a wonderful performance in Killarney of his first wind work, Gallimaufry. If you only know Illyrian Dances, try Gallimaufry, Divertimento or Mockbeggar Variations, all containing movements of sheer lyrical charm. They are listed at Grade 4/5 in some lists, but I think are worth tackling with a Grade 3-4 level group, since they present problems which are so very musical.

What I really enjoyed from many of the composers at the conferences was this lyrical side to their works. Steve Bryant’s Grade 3 piece Dusk was commissioned by Andrew Gekoskie of Langley High School, an evocative chorale. Freya’s Call and Hymn for Africa emerged at BASBWE, both like the pieces by Fergal Carroll, have simple yet memorable melodies which are repeated, again both very effective. Yo Goto finished his studies at the University of North Texas with Cindy McTee; checking on Lachrymae I see that it is Grade 5, but I was so excited by the sound world and the textures that I never noted how difficult it was. College bands might well explore this for something passionate, controlled and in a new language.

Timothy Jackson’s Passacaglia was originally written for 32 horns; as soon as I heard it I invited him to rescore it for band, and the result has a Brahmsian sweep though couched in a Second Viennese language and yet packed with an emotion which will carry both players and audience. The band which played it thought it was about Grade 5 – lack of ambition here. I would think it is Grade 4, as is alsoBill Connor’s Sun Low Over Water, a wonderfully evocative 13 minutes of sustained invention, (well OK a tough Grade 4). Easier is Scott Boerma’s Poem, a moving elegy for a much loved teacher.

Martin Ellerby celebrated the Hans Christian Andersen centenary with a charming suite, Tales from Andersen and has also reworked a couple of brass band pieces in the new Accolade series from Maecenas; Natalis is the most musical of this pair but if you enjoy brass band music, you will probably enjoy Hampstead Heath.

Finally, another work at Grade 3 which will be wonderful for introducing your students to exploring compositional soundworlds themselves, with its scoring for home-made rattles, waterglass chimes and whirlies. Jodie Blackshaw’s Whirlwind was the First Prize Winner of the Frank Ticheli Composition Contest Category 1 – Beginner Band and she shows a great imagination in this piece. It would be a wonderful starting point for study of Bill Connor’s Tales aus dem Vood Viennoise which also employs whirlies and unusual sounds.