ORIGINALS — A Concert Of Music Specially Composed For The City Of Fairfax Band.

The creation of new music for symphonic band has been a major part of the history of the City of Fairfax Band. The band’s 50th anniversary season opens with a special program dedicated to music written for and premiered by Fairfax Band. Composed by some of America’s most noted composers and representing a wide array of styles, many of these works have found their way into the standard literature and are being performed by concert bands worldwide. A  major feature of the October 26 program is the world premiere of the latest work commissioned by the City of Fairfax Band, titled A Southern Jubilee, by legendary Hollywood film composer Bruce Broughton. Other works on the program are David Uber’s Overture for Symphonic Band, Samuel Laudenslager Sr.’s City of Fairfax Band March, Travis Cross’s And the Grass Sings in the Meadows, Mark Camphouse’s Foundation, and Ira Hearshen’s ballroom dance suite, Aragon: 1945-1952.

City of Fairfax Band March. Samuel Laudenslager Sr. was a Pennsylvania musician, music educator, arranger, and composer whose enthusiasm for band music, and specially for band marches, found expression in memorable ways. His arrangements of famous Sousa marches adapted for school bands are still in print. His son Sam Laudenslager Jr. for many years was a member of the City of Fairfax Band and leader of the Alte Kamaraden German band. Sam Sr. had special affection for the City of Fairfax Band, to whom he dedicated this eponymous march.

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Overture For Symphonic Band, Op. 364 (David Uber, 1921-2007). Dr. David Uber was a prominent American composer whose works for brasses, woodwinds, and percussion are played extensively throughout the world. His colorful career in music ranged from award-winning composer to world class trombonist, from college professor to band director. Major performing artists, corporations, and universities – and the City of Fairfax Band – have commissioned works by David Uber. He served 4 years in the United States Navy Band before continuing his studies at Columbia University, where he obtained his Master of Arts and Doctor of Education degrees. He played first-chair trombone with the New York City Ballet Orchestra, the New York City Opera Orchestra, and the NBC Symphony Orchestra. He published more than 400 musical works, including A Fairfax Overture, which was commissioned by the City of Fairfax Band in 1997 and premiered by Fairfax Band under the baton of Robert Pouliot on April 26 of that year. The piece was published under the title Overture for Symphonic Band.

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Foundation (Mark Camphouse, 1954 – ). Composer-conductor Mark Camphouse was born in Oak Park, Illinois, in 1954 and received his formal musical training (B.M., M.M.) at Northwestern University. He began composing at an early age, with the Colorado Philharmonic premiering his First Symphony when he was 17. His works for concert band have received widespread critical acclaim and are performed frequently throughout the USA and abroad. Engagements as a guest conductor, lecturer, and clinician have taken him to 36 states, Canada, and Europe. Mr. Camphouse is an elected member of the American Bandmasters Association and serves as conductor of the National Band Association’s Young Mentor Project. He is a full-time faculty member at George Mason University. Foundation (2006) is not only a significant addition to the concert band repertoire, but also a work of special importance to the City of Fairfax Band. The piece was commissioned as a memorial to the late Ray Abell, long-time Fairfax Band president. Ray Abell was an extremely important part of the band and the local community. His leadership was vital to the band’s continuity and to its continued record of success during the transitional period following the retirement of Dr. Thomas Hill as music director in 1993. Ray and his wife Sharyl Abell received official recognition from the City of Fairfax for their many years of volunteer service to the community through their work with the City of Fairfax Band. After Ray’s death in December 2002, a special Ray Abell Memorial Fund was created at the request of members of his family, including his daughter, who still participates actively in the band. Through private donations to the memorial fund and a grant from the Virginia Commission for the Arts, the City of Fairfax Band was able to commission this special new work for symphonic band in Ray’s memory. The piece was titled by the composer. As melodic material it draws on two of Ray Abell’s favorite hymn tunes: How Firm a Foundation and Be Still My Soul.

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And the Grass Sings in the Meadows (Travis J. Cross, 1977- ). When the City of Fairfax Band obtained grant support to commission a promising young Virginia composer to write an original work for concert band, attention quickly turned to the conductor of Virginia Tech’s Symphonic Wind Ensemble, Travis J. Cross, whose musicianship was well known to members of Fairfax Band’s board of directors. (Maestro Cross has since moved on to the Herb Alpert School of Music at UCLA, where he conducts the Wind Ensemble, directs the graduate wind conducting program, and chairs the music department.) Travis Cross completed doctoral coursework at Northwestern University, Evanston IL, where he studied with Mallory Thompson. He previously earned the Bachelor of Music degree cum laude in vocal and instrumental music education from St. Olaf College, Northfield MN, and the Master of Music degree in conducting from Northwestern. His original works and arrangements for band, choir, and orchestra are published by Boosey & Hawkes, Daehn Publications, and Theodore Music. And the Grass Sings in the Meadows evokes the musical moods of springtime, as reflected poetically in the closing stanza of the Spring Carol by Scottish poet Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894).

So when the earth is alive with gods,

And the lusty ploughman breaks the sod,

And the grass sings in the meadows,

And the flowers smile in the shadows,

Sits my heart at ease,

Hearing the song of the leas,

Singing the songs of the meadows.

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A Southern Jubilee (Bruce Broughton, 1945 – ). Bruce Broughton is best known for his many motion picture scores, including Silverado, Tombstone, The Rescuers Down Under, The Presidio, Miracle on 34th Street, the Homeward Bound adventures, and Harry and the Hendersons. His television themes include The Orville, JAG, Steven Spielberg’s Tiny Toon Adventures, and Dinosaurs – in addition to TV scores ranging from mini-series like Texas Rising and The Blue and the Gray to TV movies (Warm Springs, O Pioneers!), plus countless episodes of TV series such as Dallas, Quincy, Hawaii Five-O, and How the West Was Won. With 24 nominations, Broughton has won a record 10 Emmy awards. His Silverado score was Oscar-nominated, and his score to Young Sherlock Holmes was nominated for a Grammy. His music has accompanied Disney theme park attractions around the world, and his score for Heart of Darkness was the first recorded orchestral score for a video game. Broughton’s concert works have been performed by the Cleveland Orchestra; the Chicago, Seattle and National Symphonies; the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra; the Sinfonia of London; and the Hollywood Bowl. Broughton has also had numerous works for chamber ensembles performed and recorded worldwide, including his Five Pieces for Piano, recorded by pianist Gloria Cheng; Excursions for Trumpet and Band, recorded by trumpet virtuoso Philip Smith; and his string quartet Fancies, recorded and commissioned by the Lyris Quartet. His most recent piece for symphonic winds is titled A Southern Jubilee, composed on commission for the City of Fairfax Band. Tonight’s performance is the world premiere.

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Dance Suite – Aragon 1945-1952 (Ira Hearshen, 1948 – ). Ira Hearshen is one of America’s most popular and successful orchestrators and arrangers. He has written for many Hollywood films, such as Toy Story and The Scorpion King. He has also written for the concert stage, especially wind band, notably his Pulitzer-nominated Symphony on Themes of John Philip Sousa (1997). On commission from the City of Fairfax Band Association, Hearshen composed an original suite of concert music inspired by popular dance tunes from the heyday of Chicago’s Aragon Ballroom. Built in 1926, the Aragon Ballroom by the end of WW2 was drawing thousands of people every week. The crowds were attracted by the danceable sounds of just about every top group from the big band era. Each night, listeners throughout Midwestern USA and Canada tuned in to powerhouse radio station WGN for an hour-long program of dance music live from the Aragon stage. The music of Ira Hearshen’s Aragon 1945-1952 Dance Suiteis all original. Yet it is enriched by tantalizing hints and suggestions of unforgettable hit dance songs like “Sentimental Journey,” “Tennessee Waltz,” “Dance Ballerina Dance,” “Some Enchanted Evening,” and “Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive.” The premiere of Ira Hearshen’s Aragon Dance Suite was by performed by the City of Fairfax Band in 2015.

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Virginia’s City Of Fairfax Band Presents American Vistas.

Sonoran Desert Holiday (Ron Nelson, 1929 – ). Ron Nelson is a native of Joliet, Illinois. He studied composition at the Eastman School of Music, earning multiple degrees: bachelor’s in 1952, master’s in 1953, and doctorate in composition in 1957. Nelson’s Passacaglia (Homage on B-A-C-H) was the first piece to win all three major wind band composition prizes during one award season — the National Band Association Prize, the American Bandmasters Association Ostwald Award, and the Sudler International Prize. Nelson was awarded the Medal of Honor by the John Philip Sousa Foundation in 1994. In 2006, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Oklahoma City University. Nelson has received numerous commissions, including from the National Symphony Orchestra, the Rochester Philharmonic, the United States Air Force Band and Chorus, Musashino Wind Ensemble, Aspen Music Festival, and numerous colleges and universities. He has also received grants and awards from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Howard Foundation, ASCAP, and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1996, conductor Leonard Slatkin said, “Nelson is the quintessential American composer. He has the ability to move between conservative and newer styles with ease. The fact that he’s a little hard to categorize is what makes him interesting.” Nelson’s Sonoran Desert Holiday was commissioned by the U.S. Air Force Band Of Flight, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, Lt. Col. Richard A. Shelton Commander & Conductor. The piece was composed in 1995, concluding a series of exciting overtures that the composer called “musical travelogues” which started in 1953. Sonoran Desert Holiday evokes pleasant images and textures of midnight vistas, sunrises, native American and Hispanic cultural influences, and wide-open southwestern spaces. (Note adapted from Wikipedia.org)

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A Northern Legend (Alfred Reed, 1921-2005). Reed was born in New York City. He started learning trumpet at age 10. In his teens he played in hotel combos in the Catskills. At the onset of World War II, he joined the 529th Army Air Corps Band, where during 3½ years of service he produced nearly 100 compositions and arrangements for band. After military discharge, he studied composition with Vittorio Giannini at Juilliard. In 1953, he enrolled at Baylor University, serving as symphony orchestra conductor while earning bachelor’s (1955) and master’s degrees (1956) in music. He was executive editor of Hansen Publishing (1955-1966), then become professor of music at the University of Miami, where he served until retirement in 1993. He continued composing and guest-conducting as a post-retirement career. A Northern Legend was composed in 1971, when Dr. Reed was a new faculty member and clinician that year for the Bemidji State College Music Clinic & Conference summer camp held in Bemidji Minnesota. Reed brought with him to the camp a new work for band whose title, at the time, was Star of the North (An Indian Legend). Based on Chippewa Indian themes that Reed had obtained from the archives of the Library of Congress, the work was premiered at the final camp concert by the Beaver Band with the composer conducting. The work contrasts between lush warm and rich melodies and harmonies that weave and interplay with each other, and a fiery intense middle section that is reminiscent of a war or battle song. There are wonderful moments of solo work between the flute, clarinet, oboe, alto sax, and French horn throughout the opening and closing sections. The dramatic middle movement is dominated by the brass with trombone and euphonium in particular leading the charge with usual support from a driving percussion section. This beautifully dramatic work was performed only months before Reed completed arguably one of his greatest contributions to the wind band genre, Armenian Dances. Throughout A Northern Legend, Reed can be heard combining colors, rhythms, and styles that would ultimately lay the groundwork for his major compositional achievement that followed. (Note adapted in part from Sydney University Wind Orchestra, Sydney, Australia.)

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Shenandoah (Frank Ticheli, 1958 – ). Frank Ticheli, a native of Monroe, Louisiana, received a Bachelor of Music degree in composition from Southern Methodist University and both a Masters Degree in composition and the degree Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of Michigan. He is Associate Professor of Music at the University of Southern California and was Composer-in-Residence of the Pacific Symphony Orchestra 1991-1998. He writes music for band, wind ensemble, orchestra, chamber ensembles, and theatre. His musical awards include the Goddard Lieberson fellowship and the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy and Institute of Arts & Letters; the 1989 Walter Beeler Memorial Composition Prize; the Ross Lee Finney Award; and 1^st prize in the 11^th annual Virginia Symposium for New Band Music. Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley and Shenandoah River and Shenandoah Mountain – a ridge 65 miles long inside George Washington National Forest that forms part of the western margin of the Shenandoah Valley – all share a name whose origin is obscure. The origins of the folk song Shenandoah are likewise obscure, but all date to the 19^thcentury. Frank Ticheli said,“In my setting of Shenandoah I was inspired by the freedom and beauty of the folk melody and by the natural images evoked by the words, especially the image of a river. I was less concerned with the sound of a rolling river than with its life-affirming energy – its timelessness. Sometimes the accompaniment flows quietly under the melody; other times it breathes alongside it. The work’s mood ranges from quiet reflection, through growing optimism, to profound exaltation.”

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Joy Of Life (Brian Balmages, 1975 – ). Brian Balmages is an award-winning composer, conductor, producer, and performer. He holds a bachelor’s degree in music from James Madison University and a master’s degree from the University of Miami in Florida. His compositions have been performed worldwide. His commissions and premieres have encompassed groups ranging from elementary schools to professional ensembles, including the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Miami Symphony Orchestra, University of Miami Wind Ensemble, Boston Brass, and the Dominion Brass Ensemble. In 2012, Balmages received the prestigious Albert Austin Harding Award from the American School Band Directors Association. He is also 2010 winner of the Harvey G. Phillips Award for Compositional Excellence, presented by the International Tuba-Euphonium Association. As conductor, Balmages leads numerous all-state and regional honor bands and orchestras along with university and professional ensembles. His notable guest conducting appearances have included the Midwest Clinic, Western International Band Clinic, National Association for Music Educators, American School Band Directors Association, CBDNA, the Kennedy Center, and Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. He has also served as an adjunct professor of instrumental conducting and Acting Symphonic Band Director at Towson University in Maryland. Commissioned by the concert band of Lafayette, Louisiana, (Gerald Guilbeaux, conductor),  Joy Of Life was inspired by the vibrant joie de vivre of Cajun culture. The rich, colorful traditions of Cajun music drive the piece forward with exciting melodies, rhythms, and countermelodies, with elements of blues and jazz sparkling through like bayou sunlight shimmering on Spanish moss. The contrasting somber but lyrical middle section (Adagio, molto espressivo) is based on the Navy hymn, Eternal Father, Strong To Save, and features solos for euphonium, bassoon, horn, and oboe. As the original tempo returns, a final fugal section builds to a heroic chorale. Three emphatic ending chords bring the work to a close in a powerful Amen. (Note adapted from Wikipedia.org)

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Quiet City (Aaron Copland, 1900-1990). When Copland came back to the United States after spending the 1920s in Paris with other American literary and musical expatriates, he took on a leading role in American music as a composer, promoter, and educator for the next 50 years. Nobody else wrote so many or such wide-ranging staples of the American concert repertory. Some of his music even leapt from the concert hall straight into the popular consciousness, sounding forth for stately occasions (Fanfare for the Common Man) and spicing up the TV commercial, “Beef – it’s what’s for dinner!” (Rodeo). Quiet City derives from incidental music Copland wrote in 1939 for an Irwin Shaw play that was canceled before it ever premiered because it was considered “too experimental.” Copland reworked his simple duet for trumpet and English horn into a concert piece which begins and ends with the stillness of night and the solitude of a lone trumpeter. Decades later, in conversation with oral historian Vivian Perlis, Copland recalled: “Quiet City was billed as a ‘realistic fantasy,’ a contradiction in terms that only meant the stylistic difference made for difficulties in production. The script was about a young trumpet player who imagined the night thoughts of many different people in a great city and played trumpet to express his emotions and to arouse the consciences of the other characters and of the audience. After reading the play, I composed music that I hoped would evoke the inner distress of the central character. . . . [The director and cast] struggled valiantly to make the play convincing, but after two try-out performances in April, Quiet City was dropped. (Adapted in part from Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra website.)

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Tableaux de Provence (Paule Maurice, 1910-1967). Paule Maurice’s most famous composition is her suite titled Tableaux de Provence pour saxophone et orchestre, written between 1948 and 1955 and dedicated to saxophone virtuoso Marcel Mule. Her other compositions include Suite pour quatuor de flûtes, Volio, Cosmorama, Concerto pour piano et orchestre, Mémoires d’un chat, Trois pièces pour violon, and many more, all catalogued in the library of the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, where Maurice studied and spent her professional life. Tableaux de Provence portrays the culture and scenery of Provence, in southeast France. Its first performance was in 1958. The symphonic band transcription is by Maarten Jense (1959 – ).

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Highlights From Pocahontas (music by Alan Menken, 1949 – ). Disney’s movie magic comes not only from the studio’s engaging stories and brilliant cartoon animation, but also from music and lyrics that fit the characters and the action just right. The animated feature Pocahontas (1995) is no exception. The film won Academy Awards in two musical categories – Best Original Score and Best Original Song (“Colors Of The Wind”). Musical highlights include the Oscar-winning song plus “The Virginia Company,” “Mine, Mine, Mine,” “Savages,” “Just Around The Riverbend,” “John Smith Sneaks Out,” “Execution,” and “Farewell.” The concert band arrangement is by John Moss (1948- ).

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City Of Fairfax Band Goes Hollywood.

 

Conquest (Alfred Newman, 1901-1970). Alfred Newman was a child prodigy on piano. His youthful talent led virtuoso Jan Paderewski to arrange a recital for him in New York City. By age 12, he began playing in theaters and restaurants on a schedule that often had him playing five shows a day. At 13 he played the vaudeville circuit, billed as “The Marvelous Boy Pianist.” On the tour, he was sometimes allowed to conduct the orchestras, leading him to make conducting his career goal. By age 15, he was regularly conducting performances for matinees. By 19, he began conducting full-time, the start of a 10-year career on Broadway. Irving Berlin invited Newman to Hollywood in 1930 – and the rest is history. Newman’s work with Samuel Goldwyn’s studio led to his development as a towering figure in the history of film music. He won nine Academy Awards and was nominated 43 times. He was among the first musicians to compose and conduct original music during Hollywood’s Golden Age, later becoming one of the most respected and powerful music directors in the Hollywood history. Newman and his fellow composers Max Steiner and Dimitri Tiomkin were regarded as the three godfathers of film music. In 1947 Newman composed the music for Captain From Castile, a historical adventure movie about the Spanish conquistadors. The score includes the famous Conquest March. (The march was adapted by the University Of Southern California as the official theme song for their sports teams, the USC Trojans.) The concert band arrangement ofConquestis by David Bennett. (Note adapted from wikipedia.org )

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Film Music from Titanic (James Horner, 1953 – ). James Horner was born in the USA (Los Angeles) but was in Britain as a child, studying at the Royal College of Music. Back in California, he received a bachelor’s degree in music from USC and a master’s from UCLA. Horner’s first major movie score was for the 1979 film, The Lady in Red. His work steadily gained notice in Hollywood, leading to larger projects. Horner’s breakthrough was in 1982, when he scored Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, which established him as a mainstream Hollywood composer. Through the 1980s, he scored 48 Hours(1982), Krull (1983), Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), Commando( 1985), Cocoon (1985), Aliens (1986), Willow (1988), Glory (1989), and Field Of Dreams (1989). Horner’s greatest financial and commercial success came in 1997 with the film score for Titanic. The album became the best-selling primarily orchestral soundtrack in history, selling over 27 million copies worldwide. The movie won 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture. James Horner took home two Oscars – for Best Original Dramatic Score, and for Best Original Song for “My Heart Will Go On” (with Will Jennings, who wrote the lyrics). The concert band arrangement by Calvin Custer features “Southampton,” “Take Her To Sea, Mr. Murdock,” “Hard To Starboard,” and “My Heart Will Go On.”

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Excerpts From Far and Away (John Williams, 1932 – ). John Williams created an expansive score for this 1992 feature film about an Irish immigrant couple seeking their fortune while heading west in 1890s America. It was the composer’s first movie collaboration with Ron Howard as film director. The narrative sweep of the film gave Williams an opportunity to write for several genres at once. The story has an obvious and significant Irish tilt, and Williams embellishes upon the the film’s ethnic elements with depth and beauty. The music also marked a return to Hollywood Western scores for Williams, who had written frontier adventure music for The Cowboys (1972) andThe Man Who Loved Cat Dancing (1973). Far and Away displays Williams’s special knack for generating distinct themes for particular dramatic situations in the film, with three major themes and an equal number of supporting motifs that uniquely enrich the on-screen drama. (Note adapted from filmtracks.com )

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Symphonic Suite From Jurassic World (Michael Giacchino, 1967 – ). Michael Giacchino was educated at Julliard in music and film production. His first major composition was for DreamWorks Studios for the video game adaptation of the 1997 movie Jurassic Park, The Lost World. That made him a natural choice for soundtrack composer for the 2015 revival of the Jurassic Park series, which needed a boost after several years on the back burner, not to mention the 2008 death of Jurassic Park author and creator Michael Crichton. To a degree, Giacchino approached Jurassic World’s music as a tribute to John Williams’s score for the original 1993 Jurassic Park feature film, making complex use of Williams’s chords, tone, orchestrations, and stylistic flourishes, in addition to introducing some new musical themes. Giacchino gained new admiration for his ability to work creatively, with tact and enthusiasm, within a style and tone established by all three earlier films that led up to Jurassic World. Regarding his score’s inclusion of material derived from John Williams, Giacchino said, “It was a really targeted approach as to where to where it would make the most sense and where would we most appreciate it, as fans ourselves.” The Jurassic World Symphonic Suite was arranged for concert band by Jay Bocock. (Note adapted from filmtracks.com )

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Colonel Bogey March (Kenneth J. Alford). The Bridge on the River Kwai cleaned up on Oscar night. Alec Guinness took home the Oscar for best actor. Besides that, the picture collected Academy Awards for Best Picture of 1957, for cinematography, film editing, writing, and directing, and for Best Score – an Oscar that went to the distinguished British composer Malcolm Arnold, whose scoring talents helped make the film such a success. The unforgettable tune whistled by the British POWs in the movie comes from the opening strain of a famous British military march that is still heard on armed service parade grounds throughout the world, “Colonel Bogey March” by Kenneth J. Alford (pseudonym of Major Fredrick Joseph Ricketts, Royal Marines, 1881-1945). Ricketts lied about his age so he could join the band of the Royal Irish Regiment in 1895. He continued in the army until 1927, when he was commissioned into the Royal Marines as a Director of Music. He retired in 1944 after nearly 50 years in uniform.

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Silverado (Bruce Broughton, 1945 – ). Film and television composer Bruce Broughton has written several highly acclaimed soundtracks over his extensive career, in addition to a number of instrumental solos and concert pieces for band, orchestra, and chamber ensembles. He is also a lecturer in composition at UCLA. Lawrence Kasdan’s 1985 motion picture production of Silverado marked a revival of Hollywood’s Western movie genre that lasted at least 10 years. Kasdan was able to assemble a remarkable ensemble cast by employing lead actors whose best years were still mostly ahead of them – Kevin Kline, Scott Glenn, Kevin Costner, Danny Glover, Brian Dennehy, and John Cleese. The story addresses nearly all the Western movie stereotypes, from rancher and sheriff disputes to outlaws who band together to defend frontier towns against violence and oppression. Silverado gave western movies a fresh new start, and the original score by Bruce Broughton was a big part of that, earning heavy accolades and an Academy Award nomination, and making Broughton a leading Hollywood voice for Western scores in the years ahead. The title piece was arranged for concert band by Randol Alan Bass. (Note adapted from filmtracks.com )

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Symphonic Suite From On The Waterfront (Leonard Bernstein, 1918-1990). Ranked 8th on the American Film Institute’s 100 all-time best American movies, On the Waterfrontalso ranks 22nd on the AFI’s list of the top American film scores. The music for On The Waterfront that Leonard Bernstein wrote during three months in Hollywood in 1954 was his one and only film score. (Other films using Bernstein’s music adapted it from pieces he had already written.) The trouble with movie music, Bernstein wrote, is that “it is a musically unsatisfactory for a composer to write a score whose chief merit ought to be its unobtrusiveness.” Lamenting the experience of the sound-editing studio, he described how the film composer “sits by, protesting as he can, but ultimately accepting, be it with heavy heart, the inevitable loss of a good part of his score. Everyone tries to comfort him. ‘You can always use it in a suite.’” So the next summer, that’s what Bernstein did, creating a stand-alone concert piece that develops the principal ideas from his film score into a finely integrated musical experience. The result is less a suite of separate movements than a single tone poem drawing on a technique of thematic transformation, beginning with a solo horn theme originally heard during the film’s opening credits. Mournful blues touches deepen the mood of a lonely city (Hoboken’s rundown dockyards), while the violent scenes are evoked by some of Bernstein’s most aggressive writing – a jazz mode that conveys nightmarish brutality instead of big-city exuberance. The suite’s emotional center is built on the score’s main theme (a variant of the opening horn solo), a characteristically yearning, widely spaced melody. After the violent music comes back, Bernstein transcends it with a glorious transformation which becomes an ode to the film protagonist’s defiant endurance. (Note adapted from kennedy-center.org )

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Music Of The Stars.

Journey Through Orion (Julie Girouix, 1961 – ). Julie Giroux was born in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, and raised in Phoenix, Arizona. She started writing music before she reached her teens. In 1992, with a recent degree in performance from Louisiana State University, she won an Emmy for music direction, the first woman and youngest person so honored. With credits for over 100 films and television programs, she has composed for symphony orchestras, wind ensembles, military bands, soloists, brass and woodwind quintets, and other concert and commercial musical formats. Journey Through Orion was premiered in 2006 at the Association of Concert Bands, with Colonel Arnald D. Gabriel (USAF, ret.) conducting. Images of the Great Orion Nebula, Barnard’s Loop, M78, M43, Molecular Clouds 1 and 2, and the Horsehead Nebula greatly influenced the composer to sketch a musical journey through those astronomical features, using musical notes. Through the music, we can travel 1,500 light-years away to the constellation of Orion the Hunter, into the Molecular Cloud Complex, and through the Great Orion Nebula, where stars and ideas are born. (Note adapted from Palatine Concert Band, Palatine, Illinois – www.palatineconcertband.org)

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Excursions for Trumpet and Band (Bruce Broughton). Creating music in the tradition of the great film composers of history, Bruce Broughton is one of the busiest, most versatile, and most successful TV and movie composers currently working in Hollywood. He got an Academy Award nomination for his first major film score, Silverado. His very next assignment, Young Sherlock Holmes, got him a Grammy nomination for the soundtrack album. Besides those, he created the music for JAG, First Monday, Lost in Space, Honey I Blew Up the Kid, The Presidio, Hart to Hart, Dallas, Quincy, Barnaby Jones, Hawaii Five-O, and dozens more movies and television shows. In his aptly named 1996 Excursions for Trumpet and Band, the composer takes a break from the large and small screen to explore the diverse technical and expressive capabilities of the trumpet. About it, Bruce Broughton has commented, “Although not literally a programmatic piece, Excursions is based upon a tune that wanders in and out of various musical situations. After a short introduction by the soloist, the main theme is presented over a lightly ambling accompaniment. The theme travels this way and that, running into some interesting diversions along the way, eventually meeting itself where it began – at the introduction.” Angular melodies and driving rhythms characterize the piece, permeating the “various musical situations” through which the solo trumpet leads the band. Broughton masterfully uses fragments of the opening thematic material – including wide leaps, syncopations and, a rising 16th note figure – in exciting new combinations. The result is a musical journey with an ever-changing view, but in territory that remains familiar. Excursions was premiered by the U.S. Air Force Band, with Chief Master Sergeant Ronald Blais as soloist, at the Florida Music Educators Association convention in January 1996.

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Adventures On Earth (John Williams, 1932 – ). John Williams studied composition at UCLA and later attended Juilliard. In 1956, he started working as a recording pianist in film and TV, including the groundbreaking 1958 Peter Gunn soundtrack sessions with Henry Mancini. (He was listed as “Johnny T. Williams” on the album credits.) Williams followed in Mancini’s footsteps, becoming composer and music director for over 70 Hollywood films, including Jaws, Star Wars, Superman, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Schindler’s List, Jurassic Park, Memoirs of a Geisha, Catch Me If You Can, and more. Williams has received two Emmys, five Oscars, and 17 Grammy Awards, plus several gold and platinum records. From 1980 to 1993, Williams was conductor of the Boston Pops. He has written many concert pieces and is also known for the Olympic themes and fanfares he wrote for the 1984, 1988, and 1996 games. In 1982 Stephen Spielberg charmed America and the world with his movie about a friendly extra-terrestrial being stranded on planet Earth. After some exciting adventures with the children who discover him, and several narrow escapes from the authorities, E.T reunites with his spaceship so he can return home. Original soundtrack music by John Williams helped make E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial a special and spectacularly successful Hollywood blockbuster. Adventures on Earth comes from the final reel of the movie. Film director Spielberg allowed musical director Williams to record the Adventures On Earth sequence without a metronomic click track, and then had the closing moments of the feature film re-edited to match the score. The film music is also a spectacular concert piece, arranged for symphonic band by Paul Lavender.

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Mars, the Bringer of War (Gustav Holst, 1874-1934). Between 1914 and 1916, after talking with a friend about astrology, Holst composed an orchestral suite of seven tone poems portraying the extraterrestrial planets from Mars to Neptune. (Pluto had not yet been discovered.) To Holst, each planet’s special characteristics suggested contrasting musical moods for a work unlike anything he had yet written. Holst worked hard to refute the idea that Mars, the Bringer of War (first of the seven movements), was written after the outbreak of World War I. The movement is not a comment on war, he said, but a prophetic vision of war – all the more remarkable because Holst had never heard a machine gun, and the tank had not yet been introduced to the battlefield. The concert band arrangement is by Holst himself.

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Stardust (Hoagy Carmichael, 1899-1981). By 1927 Hoagy Carmichael had written a couple of songs – “Washboard Blues” and “Riverboat Shuffle” – but he wasn’t an actor or a singer or a composer. He was a lawyer. It doesn’t take legal training to write “Stardust” but it helps. The song’s lyricist, Mitchell Parish, was himself a law clerk about that time time. “Hoagy studied law,” Parish said, many years later, “and he was practicing in Florida when they had that real estate boom in the 1920s. And he didn’t like the practice of law. It didn’t suit his creative inclination. Something gets into your blood – like lyric writing in mine, popular songs. The same bug got into his blood. He would have done very well as an attorney because he was a very gifted person and very intelligent. But the songwriting, writing music, made him.” So in 1927 Carmichael quit his law practice in Florida and went back home to Bloomington, Indiana. The official version of the creation of “Stardust” is that young Hoagland was in love with a girl called Dorothy Kelly, and one night, strolling across the campus of Indiana University, he came to the so-called “spooning wall.” And, seeing the happy couples and pining for Dorothy, he looked up at the starry sky and started whistling a tune. Which, even in his moony, lovelorn state, he recognized as pretty good. So he hastened over to a joint called the Book Nook that had a piano. “The notes sounded good,” said Hoagy, “and I played till I was tossed out, protesting, still groping for the full content of my music.” Well, that’s the official story. The real story, according to biographer Richard Sudhalter, was that Carmichael had in fact been working on the tune much earlier, and, as the melodic style suggests, with the intention of capturing the essence of a Bix Beiderbecke cornet solo. Bix can stake a claim to being the first great fatality of jazz – dying young years before doing so became a cliché of the industry. Hoagy outlived Bix by half a century, and a great and brilliant man spent the rest of his life trying to live up to a fellow who checked out in his twenties. Hoagy named his son after Beiderbecke, and Carmichael’s very last composition, “Piano Pedal Rag,” which premiered at Carnegie Hall in 1979, was an attempt to write “something that was a little bit like something Bix might have liked.” There have been more than 1,500 recordings of Stardust, and scores of arrangements, including a lush concert band version by Sammy Nestico. (Note adapted from Mark Steyn, http://www.steynonline.com.)

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Looking Upward Suite (John Philip Sousa, 1854–1932). Sousa was exceptionally proud of his 11 concert suites and featured them prominently in his band concerts. They are not as well known or as popular as Sousa’s marches, but the suites served an important place in Sousa’s unique programs as a middle ground between the heavier classics he often featured and the many lighter pieces he included as “musical sorbets.” For most of Sousa’s suites, inspiration came from something he experienced or read. Looking Upward was among Sousa’s favorites, and he often recounted for news reporters the inspiration for the work. The first movement had been inspired while looking into the darkening sky one crisp evening while riding a train through South Dakota. The second movement was suggested by an advertisement for a steamship named The Southern Cross. The third came simply by “… gazing into the heavens….” The suite contains largely original music throughout, although Sousa did borrow two brief themes from his operetta Chris and the Wonderful Lamp. Sousa was a master of musical effects, and one of the distinguishing features of Looking Upward is a pair of drum rolls in the third movement, titled “Mars and Venus,” which begin as whispers and slowly swell into thunderous roars before diminishing once again. The score and parts were edited by Col. John R. Bourgeois (USMC, Ret.), former conductor of the United States Marine Band. In The Sousa Band concert programs, the printed notes were usually as follows:

By the Light of the Polar Star: “Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way, Oh what fun it is to ride In a one-horse open sleigh.”–Old song.

Under the Southern Cross: Above the slim minaret, Two stars of twilight glow, The lute and bright castanet Sound in the dusk below. Look from thy lattice, Gulnare, Gulnare. Stars of twilight glow, Now through the nearing night Four stars in glory rise– “Two the pale heavens light. Two arc thy shining eyes.” –Macdonough.

Mars and Venus: “He was a soldier off to war. She was a sweet young soul. She sang of love and he of glory, And together they told the same old story. After the drummer’s roll, my lad. After the drummer’s roll.” –Old, old song.

(Note adapted from United States Marine Band, http://www.marineband.marined.mil)

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Chorale Prelude: So Pure the Star (Vincent Persichetti, 1915-1987). Philadelphia native Vincent Persichetti was an important composer, musical educator, and writer. He was known for integrating new musical ideas into his own musical composition, as well as for using those ideas in training many noted composers in composition at the Juilliard School. Few 20th century American composers are as universally admired as Vincent Persichetti. His contributions enriched the entire musical literature. His influence in performing and teaching is immense. He is revered as a teacher par excellence and a highly lucid theorist. In both capacities his great artistry was ever clear and impressive, providing an example of dynamic leadership to all who encountered his genius. So Pure the Star was written in 1963, on commission by the Duke University Band. It treats an original chorale melody with contemporary harmonies, resulting in a hauntingly beautiful, lyrical and spiritual piece. (Note adapted from Ridgewood Concert Band, Ridgewood NJ, njwindsymphony.org)

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The Americans — (musical composers of the USA, not the Soviet spy TV show).

The City Of Fairfax Band, Robert Pouliot music director

Saturday, May 19, 2018 | 7:30 pm
Fairfax High School Auditorium, Fairfax VA
Featuring the Fairfax Saxophone Quartet

Presenting an evening of all-American music by Aaron Copland, Paul Creston, Alfred Reed, John Phlilp Sousa, and John Williams, plus a tribute to Stephen Foster featuring the Fairfax Saxophone Quartet. Adding to the celebration is the presentation of the winner of the 2018 City of Fairfax Band Young Artist Competition in performance with the band.

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Tuba Concerto (Edward Gregson, 1945 – ). Edward Gregson was born in Sunderland, County Durham, England, in 1945. He is a composer of international standing whose music has been performed, broadcast, and recorded worldwide. He has written orchestral, chamber, instrumental, and choral music, as well as major contributions to the wind and brass repertoire. He has also written music for the theatre, film, and television. Gregson has completed commissions for orchestras such as the BBC Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Bournemouth Symphony, and Hallé orchestras. However, it is his concertos for various instruments that form the backbone of his orchestral output: for horn (1971), tuba (1976), trumpet (1983), trombone (1979), clarinet (1994), piano (1997), violin (2000), saxophone (2006), cello (2007), and flute (2013). Gregson’s Tuba Concerto was commissioned by the Besses o’ th’ Barn Band with funds provided by the Arts Council of Great Britain. It was written for, and is dedicated to, John Fletcher, who gave the first performance in Middleton Civic Hall, near Manchester, on 24 April, 1976, with Besses o’ th’ Barn Band conducted by the composer. The première was was recorded by BBC Television for an Omnibusprogramme with André Previn as presenter. The concerto exists in three versions: with brass band (1976), orchestra (1978) and wind band (1984). The Tuba Concerto has established itself as one of the main works in the solo tuba repertoire. It has been performed and broadcast in over 40 countries all over the world. There are currently six commercial recordings of the concerto in its various versions. (Note adapted from edwardgregson.com)

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El Camino Real (Alfred Reed, 1921-2005). Literally translated as “The Royal Road” or “The King’s Highway,” El Camino Real was commissioned by, and is dedicated to, the 581^stAir Force Band (AFRES) and its Commander, Lt. Col. Ray E. Toler. Composed during the latter half of 1984 and completed in early 1985, it bears the subtitle: A Latin Fantasy. The music is based on a series of chord progressions common to countless generations of Spanish flamenco guitarists, whose fiery style and brilliant playing have captivated millions of music lovers throughout the world. These progressions and the resulting key relationships have become practically synonymous with what we feel to be the true Spanish idiom. Together with the folk melodies they have underscored, in part derived by a procedure known to musicians as the “melodizing of harmony,” they have created a vast body of what most people would consider authentic Spanish music. The first section of the music is based upon the dance form known as the Jota, while the second, contrasting section is derived from the Fandango, here altered considerably in both time and tempo from its usual form. Overall, the music follows a traditional three-part pattern: fast-slow-fast. Alfred Reed was born on Manhattan Island in New York City on January 25, 1921. His formal music training began at the age of 10, when he studied trumpet. As a teenager, he played with small hotel combos in the Catskill Mountains. His interests shifted from performing to arranging and composition. In 1938, he started working in the Radio Workshop in New York as a staff composer/arranger and assistant conductor. With the onset of World War II, he enlisted and was assigned to the 529^thArmy Air Corps Band. During his 3½years of service, he produced nearly 100 compositions and arrangements for band. After his discharge, Reed enrolled at the Juilliard School of Music and studied composition with Vittorio Giannini. In 1953, he enrolled at Baylor University, serving as conductor of the Symphony Orchestra while he earned a Bachelor of Music degree (1955). A year later, he received his Master of Music degree. His interest in the development of educational music led him to serve as executive editor of Hansen Publishing from 1955 to 1966. He left that position to become a professor of music at the University of Miami, where he served until his retirement in 1993. After retirement, he continued to compose and made numerous appearances as guest conductor in many nations, most notably in Japan. At the age of 84, on September 17, 2005, Alfred Reed passed away after a short illness. (Program note adapted from Foothill Symphonic Winds, Los Altos Hills, California — http://www.fswinds.org)

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The March From “1941″(John Williams, 1932- ). What happens when a top movie director combines epic-film special effects with a Three Stooges plotline? If the director is Steven Spielberg and the1979 headline actors are Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi and Slim Pickens, the answer is “1941” – and Spielberg had to know that even if his war comedy flopped, it would be a light-hearted flop, along the lines of Used Cars and Animal House. Plus, there was some snappy music, including the title march by John Williams. The band transcription is by Paul Lavender.

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Divertimento for Band (Vincent Persichetti, 1915-1987). Persichetti’s musical and artistic talent emerged in his early youth. He first publicly performed music he that he composed himself at age 14. While still in his teens, Persichetti was paying for his own education by accompanying and performing, taking on the roles of church organist, orchestral player, and radio station pianist. He also attended art school and remained an avid sculptor all his life. After receiving a bachelor’s degree in 1936 from Combs College of Music in Philadelphia, he was immediately offered a teaching position. By age 20, Persichetti was simultaneously head of the theory and composition department at Combs, a conducting major at the Curtis Institute, and a student of piano and composition at the Philadelphia Conservatory. He earned a master’s degree in 1941 and a doctorate in 1945 from the Conservatory, as well as a conducting diploma from Curtis. In 1941, while still a student, Persichetti headed the theory and composition department as well as the department of postgraduate study at Philadelphia Conservatory. In 1947, William Schuman offered him a professorship at Juilliard. While at Juilliard School of Music, Persichetti devoted himself to the wind band movement and led other prominent composers to write wind band music. Each of the six movements of Persichetti’s Divertimento for Bandcovers a completely different mood and style. Agitated woodwind figures and aggressive brass polychords in the first and last movements contrast with the delicate and lyrical inner movements. It has been said that Persichetti’s use of instruments makes the reeds the movers, the brass the pointers, and the percussion the connectors and high-lighters. The opening “Prologue” is driving and electric, while the “Song” (Mvt. 2) demonstrates Persichetti’s lyricism as he weaves together two simple and attractive melodies. In the “Dance” (Mvt. 3) the woodwinds the melody around and about a solo trumpet passage. The pesanteopening of the “Burlesque” (Mvt. 4) suddenly changes to brightlywith no change in tempo, but a complete change in the texture. The beauty of the “Soliloquy” (Mvt. 5) belongs to the solo cornet. The percussion entrance of the concluding “March” returns the pace to that of the original opening as the brass and woodwind choirs sound over the punctuation and timbre of the percussion section.(Note adapted from Foothill Symphonic Winds, Los Altos Hills, California – fswinds.org)

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The Rifle Regiment (John Philip Sousa, 1954-1932). Sousa composed The Rifle Regimentin 1886. It is one of several compositions he sold outright to Harry Coleman, a Philadelphia publisher, for $35.00 a title. An article by Frederick Fennell explains that “Sousa discovered very early in his life as a composer that what he had to offer through his marches was a music that people really wanted to hear and sometimes to dance to and for which they were ready to pay; these were to remain inseparable touchstones to success throughout his life. Once his marches in their basic pattern had established him as the March King, he chose to reign in this realm only, in spite of his long interest and initial success in musical theater. . . . From the outset of his career as a composer of memorable marches he obviously lived up to his later specifications for the writing of something ‘as free from padding as a marble statue.’ Our Flirtations was followed chronologically by Sound Off(1885), The Gladiator(1886), and The Rifle Regiment(1886), three of his very best achievements. Each of these continued to reveal a composer with something to say that was worth ‘marching’ to.” The title of the march refers to the The Third Infantry, known “The Old Guard.”

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Legend (Paul Creston, 1906-1985). Paul Creston’s American name was self-fabricated (he was christened Giuseppe Guttivergi), but his emotionally generous music hints at his Italian heritage. During his childhood, Creston visited Sicily with his mother where he was exposed to the folk songs and dances of the Sicilian peasants, an experience that awakened his love of music. Upon his return to the USA, he persuaded his parents to let him begin music lessons. They said OK. The precocious Creston quickly surpassed the abilities of his teacher and by age 14 he began to chart his own path. In 1934 he became organist at St. Malachy’s Church, New York City. He had no formal training in music theory, teaching himself composition by studying musical scores and by reading. Yet after leaving St. Malachy’s in 1967, he taught at Central Washington State College until his retirement in 1975. He was also active as a conductor and lecturer, excelling as a teacher, and publishing books about rhythm and harmony despite being almost entirely self-taught. Creston was a prolific composer for the concert hall, radio, and television, and wrote a dozen or more compositions for concert band including Legend (1942), which was written for Edwin Franko Goldman and premiered by the Goldman Band in New York City. Creston stated that he strove “to incorporate all that is good from earliest times to the present day. . . . I make no special effort to be American: I conscientiously work to be my true self, which is Italian by parentage, American by birth and cosmopolitan by choice.” (Note adapted from classical.net)

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An Outdoor Overture (Aaron Copland, 1900-1990). After studying with Rubin Goldmark, Aaron Copland went to Paris in 1921 to study with Nadia Boulanger. Returning in 1924, he sought a style “that could speak of universal things in a vernacular of American speech rhythms,” simplifying the chords and freshening the melodic language. Copland’s ballet and theater scores (Appalachian Spring, Billy the Kid, Rodeo) and his orchestral and recital repertory (El Salon Mexico, Lincoln Portrait, Fanfare for the Common Man, Quiet City) awaken visions of the beauty and grandeur of America and of it heroes and workers. Campaigning in the 1930s for American music to be written for American youth, the director of the New York High School of Music & Art commissioned Aaron Copland to write a single-movement piece, “optimistic in tone, that would appeal to the adolescent youth of this country.” Copland was so taken with the idea that he took a month off from work on Billy The Kid to write An Outdoor Overture, which premiered in 1938. For the Goldman Band, Copland completed the concert band version in 1941. Critics characterized the piece as “kid stuff,” but were chastised by composer Elliott Carter who said Copland’s Outdoor Overture “contains some of his finest and most personal music. Its opening is as lofty and beautiful as any passage that has been written by a contemporary composer.” (Note adapted from Foothill Symphonic Winds, Los Altos Hills, California – fswinds.org)

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Stephen Foster Revisited (Bill Holcombe, 1924-2010). While studying composition at the University of Pennsylvania in 1941, Bill Holcombe was also a pupil of Harold Bennett, then the piccolo player of the Philadelphia Orchestra. In addition to his extensive training in writing music, Holcombe majored in flute at Julliard. After WW2, he returned to Penn, working his way through college by playing in big bands and doing big-band arranging. After graduating from Penn (with high honors), Holcombe went to New York City to get in on the radio station musical staff and recording scene. While studying with Dick Jacobs and Sy Oliver, he was introduced to Tommy Dorsey, who hired him as a utility reed player and staff arranger. After a year with the Tommy Dorsey Band, Holcombe returned to New York, taking a six-month position with Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians. Following that, he was immediately hired to play first flute and woodwind doubles for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer at WMGM, their New York radio station. In the late 1950s, Bill Holcombe wrote the music for several film scores. Throughout the 1960s, he wrote recording arrangements for 101 Strings during the day and played Broadway musicals at night. Stephen Foster Revisited was commissioned by and dedicated to the Empire Saxophone Quartet of Ithaca, New York. The piece was premiered by the Binghamton (New York) Pops Orchestra on May 11, 1991.

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Polkas & Fugues & Foxtrots — Music Meant For Motion.

At 7:30 PM on Saturday, March 24, 2018, Virginia’s City Of Fairfax Band, Robert Pouliot music director, presents a musical program designed to make you want to get on your feet and dance right into spring. Selections range from the operatic to swing, with plenty more in between. Tickets are $15. The concert will be held at the Ernst Community Cultural Center of Northern Virginia Community College, 8333 Little River Turnpike, Annandale VA 22003.

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Thunder & Lightning Concert Polka (Johann Strauss II, 1825-1899). Johann Strauss The Younger composed more than 500 waltzes, polkas, quadrilles, gallops, marches, and other varieties of dance music, as well as several operettas and a ballet. In his lifetime, he was known as “The Waltz King” and received most of the credit for the popularity of waltz music in 19th century Vienna. With the composition of the Thunder & Lightning Polka, Johann Strauss elevated the polka from an Eastern European peasant romp to a dance form embraced by Vienna’s high society. The dazzling Thunder & Lightning quick polka has become such a concert favorite that it is played every year – along with The Blue Danube Waltz – at the Vienna Philharmonic’s New Year’s Day Concert. The polka is scored to evoke dramatic stormy weather elements through the strategic use of timpani and the clashing of cymbals, with punching szforzando accents. The piece ends with as much excitement and energy as it begins, never flagging for a second.

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Symphonic Dance No. 2, “The Maskers” (Clifton Williams, 1923-1976). Clifton Williams was a noted American composer, pianist, French hornist, mellophone player, music theorist, conductor, and teacher. His reputation as a virtuoso French horn player came from his performing career with the symphony orchestras of Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Houston, Oklahoma City, Austin, and San Antonio. Clifton Williams was graduated from Louisiana State University in 1947, then studied composition with Bernard Rogers and Howard Hanson at the Eastman School of Music. Original compositions by Clifton Williams have become essential parts of the repertoire for wind bands all over the world. Symphonic Dance No. 2, “The Maskers” is from a group of five pieces originally commissioned by the Minnie Stevens Piper Foundation commemorating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the San Antonio Symphony Orchestra. In refashioning the dances for symphonic band, Williams achieved a dimension of sound and color that adds fresh excitement to wind band music. In hearing the Maskers,” the listeners’ imagination may entertain visions of colorfully costumed dancers at a masked ball. First performance of the piece in its wind band form was conducted by Frederick Fennell in December 1967 at the University of Miami School of Music, where Williams was Chair of the Theory-Composition department.

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Four Scottish Dances (Malcolm Arnold, 1921-2006). Malcolm Arnold studied composition with Gordon Jacob and trumpet with Ernest Hall at the Royal College of Music, London. In 1941 he joined the trumpet section of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, becoming principal by 1943. After two years of war service and one season with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, he returned to the London Philharmonic in 1946. By then music composition was already becoming his priority. He won the Mendelssohn Scholarship in 1948, allowing him a year’s study in Italy. When he came back he concentrated on composition entirely. He wrote symphonies, operas, ballets, concertos, overtures, choral works, and song cycles. Arnold also scored some 80 motion pictures, winning an Oscar for his score to The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957). His orchestral pieces include several sets of British “national dances” – English, Cornish, Irish, Manx, Welsh, Scottish. The first performance of Arnold’s Four Scottish Dances was at the Royal Festival Hall on June 8, 1957, with the composer conducting the BBC Concert Orchestra. A brass band arrangement was published in 1984. The concert band arrangement by John Paynter (1928-1996) was published in 1978.

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Polka & Fugue from “Schwanda” (Jaromir Weinberger, 1896-1967). Weinberger, born in Prague, grew up hearing Czech folk songs at his grandparents’ farm. He started playing the piano at age 5. By age 10 he was composing and conducting. At age 14 he entered the Prague Conservatory as a second-year student. In 1939, after extensive travels in the USA, Bratislava, and Vienna, Weinberger fled Czechoslovakia to escape the Nazis. He taught in New York and Ohio, and became a U.S. citizen in 1948. Of the hundred or so pieces Weinberger composed – including operas, operettas, choral pieces, and orchestral music – just about the only one still remembered is his opera Schwanda the Bagpiper, which became popular world-wide after its 1927 premiere. The opera is still performed occasionally, and the Polka and Fugue from Schwanda has become a favorite band and orchestra program piece. The Polka is a jolly tune in a bumptious folk style that suggests peasants dancing. The contrasting Fugue adds musical sophistication with deliberate, charming simplicity. The symphonic band arrangement is by Glenn Cliffe Bainum (1888-1974).

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Cool/Fugue, From Symphonic Dances From West Side Story (Leonard Bernstein, 1918-1990). Leonard Bernstein wrote three symphonies, two operas, five musicals, and lots more. During the 1960s, his TV series of Young People’s Concerts made him famous nationwide. After Jerome Robbins came up with the idea of a modern musical based on Romeo & Juliet, it took six years before West Side Story premiered. Originally, the action was to take place on New York’s Lower East Side, with tensions flaring between Catholics and Jews at the convergence of Passover and Easter. That project went nowhere. But Moving the action to the West Side and shifting to a clash between the Polish-American Sharks and the Puerto Rican Jets fired up the authors’ imaginations so much that they took some dramatic and musical risks, which were not all well received. One of the original producers backed out two months before rehearsals started. Columbia Records initially decided against recording Bernstein’s score – too depressing and too difficult, they said. Despite all the setbacks, the authors and producers stuck with it because they knew they were creating something extraordinary. After its Broadway debut in 1957, West Side Story played 732 times before going on tour. The 1961 film version won 10 Academy Awards. Symphonic Dances From West Side Story was premiered by the New York Philharmonic on February 13, 1961. The 2008 transcription for concert band, from which tonight’s selection comes, is by Paul Lavender.

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Shall We Dance? (arr. Akira Miyagawa, 1961 – ). The King And I was a huge Broadway hit in 1951. The Rodgers & Hammerstein musical won Tony Awards for Best Musical, plus Best Actress (for Gertrude Lawrence, as Anna) and Best Featured Actor (for Yul Brynner, as the King of Siam). The King and I was loaded with hit tunes – “Getting to Know You,” “Hello, Young Lovers,” “I Whistle a Happy Tune,” “We Kiss in a Shadow,” “I Have Dreamed,” “Something Wonderful,” and “Shall We Dance?” All of those – but especially Shall We Dance? – have lived on as stand-alone popular standards that continue to entertain. Arranger Akira Miyagawa has fashioned Shall We Dance? into a high-energy concert piece showcasing the tune in varied styles of swing, rhumba, and jungle beat before concluding in grandioso style. Akira Miyagawa is involved in widely ranging compositional, directorial, and performing activities in Japan, including leading the Osaka Municipal Symphonic Band as artistic director.

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Dance Suite – Aragon 1945-1952 (Ira Hearshen, 1948 – ). Ira Hearshen is one of America’s most popular and successful orchestrators and arrangers. He has written for many Hollywood films, such as Toy Story and The Scorpion King. He has also written for the concert stage, especially wind band, notably his Pulitzer-nominated Symphony on Themes of John Philip Sousa (1997). On commission from the City of Fairfax Band Association, Hearshen composed an original suite of concert music inspired by popular dance tunes from the heyday of Chicago’s Aragon Ballroom. Built in 1926, the Aragon Ballroom by the end of WW2 was drawing thousands of people every week. The crowds were attracted by the danceable sounds of just about every top group from the big band era. Each night, listeners throughout Midwestern USA and Canada tuned in to powerhouse radio station WGN for an hour-long program of dance music live from the Aragon stage. The music of Ira Hearshen’s Aragon 1945-1952 Dance Suite is all original. Yet it is enriched by tantalizing hints and suggestions of unforgettable hit dance songs like “Sentimental Journey,” “Tennessee Waltz,” “Dance Ballerina Dance,” “Some Enchanted Evening,” and “Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive.” The premiere of Ira Hearshen’s Aragon Dance Suite was by performed by the City of Fairfax Band in 2015.

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“Ghoultide Scarols” — Halloween Music That’s Scary But Not Too Scary.

On Saturday, October 28, 2017, at 7:30 PM, in the auditorium of Fairfax High School, Fairfax VA, Virginia’s City Of Fairfax Band (Robert Pouliot music director) presents “Music Of The Ghoultide Season,” a concert featuring music by Bach, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Camille Saint-Saëns, and guest vocalists (The Fairfax Ghoultide Scarolers) singing Thomas Pavlechko’s Ghoultide Scarols, yuletide carols and Christmas tunes redone in minor keys with semi-scary Halloween-themed lyrics.

Toccata & Fugue in D Minor (Johann Sebastian Bach, 1685-1750). In 1708, the 23-year-old Johann Sebastian Bach began a 7-year term as court organist in Weimar. It was the start of one of his most productive periods. Unlike the stiff, formal image suggested by painted portraits from Bach’s maturity, the young Bach was a fiery musician. He created wildly energetic music that showed off his formidable performing talent on the organ keys and pedals. From that period came Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, a piece full of barely restrained passion and power. (Remember, the organ is a wind instrument.) The first publication of the piece was in 1833, due in large part to the efforts of Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847), who performed the piece in an acclaimed concert in 1840. Familiarity with the piece grew in the second half of the 19th century thanks to piano virtuoso Carl Tausig (1841-1871), but it was not until the 20th century that the popularity of the D Minor Toccata & Fugue rose beyond Bach’s other organ compositions. Toccata & Fugue was featured in Walt Disney’s Fantasia (1940). Eventually the piece came to be regarded as the most famous work in all organ repertoire. Beyond Disney, the piece found a home in late-night horror movies. Its trademark opening has inspired a number of sound-alikes. Few can hear it without thinking of Frankenstein and Dracula, at least briefly.

Selections From Phantom of the Opera (Andrew Lloyd Webber, 1948 – ). Since 1910, the story of the Phantom of the Opera has fascinated readers even though the critics rolled their eyes. Starting with its first thumbs-down review, the story has sparked the imagination of readers, writers, producers, and composers alike, spawning nine theatrical versions, some 18 movies, a dozen-plus novels, lots of short-stories, and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s fantastically successful 1988 Broadway musical, all based on the original plot and characters by Gaston Leroux (1868-1927). Debate rages over whether a real Phantom of the Opera ever existed. Even so, some people say the Phantom of the Opera changed their lives. The Broadway show’s haunting music has supernatural staying power. The selections include “Think of Me,” Angel of Music,” The Phantom of the Opera,” “All I Ask of You,” “The Point of No Return,” and “The Music of the Night.” The concert band arrangement is by Warren Barker (1923-2006).

The Deserted Ballroom (Morton Gould, 1913-1996). Summer is gone. The vacation resort is locked up tight for the season. The chilly winds of autumn swirl outside, a foretaste of winter. The ballroom is shuttered and deserted, dark as a tomb. But is it quiet as a tomb? Well, not just exactly. When nobody’s around to see, the spooks and spirits throw their own Halloween ball. What does it sound like when dancing goblins and gremlins kick up their heels? Morton Gould’s Deserted Ballroom can give us a pretty good idea.

Danse Macabre (Camille Saint-Saëns, 1835-1921). Camille Saint-Saëns began learning piano at age 2½ and memorized all the Beethoven piano sonatas by age 10. He entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1848, studying organ and composition. He was hailed by Hector Berlioz as one of the great hopes of French music, and gained a reputation as a piano and organ virtuoso. In his music, Saint-Saëns elevated style, wit, and elegance above all other qualities, believing that excessive emotional expression is distasteful. He was a master of orchestration whose compositions are characterized by distinctive melodic invention and a strong overall sense of proportion and refinement. According to Saint-Saëns, the artist “who does not feel entirely satisfied with elegant lines, harmonious colors, or a fine series of chords, does not understand art.” Danse Macabre (1874) is the most popular of the Saint-Saëns tone poems. The idea comes from a poem of the same title by Henri Cazalis (1840-1909): Zig, zig, zig! Death in grim rhythm beats with a bony hand upon the graves. Death at the hour of midnight plays a waltz, zig, zig, zig, upon his weirdly tuned fiddle. The night is dark and the wintry winds are sighing; moans of the dead are heard through the linden trees. Through the darkness the white skeletons dart, leaping and dancing in their spectral shrouds. Zig, zig, zig! Each ghost is gaily dancing; the bones are cracking rhythmically on the tombstones. Then suddenly the dance is at an end. The cock has crowed! Dawn interrupts the Dance of Death! At the start of the piece, 12 strokes of the clock are heard upon the harp. The opening of the graves is suggested by mysterious octaves in the bass instruments. Death tunes his fiddle (saxophones), zig, zig, zig. The Dance of Death reaches a climax with the xylophone suggesting the rhythm of the bones on tombstones. The interruption of the rooster’s crow is sounded by the oboe. Soft, agitated chords sound as the ghosts scurry back to their graves. The concert band transcription is by Mark H. Hindsley (1905-1999).

October (Eric Whitacre, 1970 – ). Eric Whitacre is one of the most frequently performed composers of his generation. He studied composition at the University of Nevada Las Vegas and the Juilliard School. His choral works and band pieces have rapidly become accepted in the repertoire due to their strong appeal for audiences and performers alike. In addition to writing music, Whitacre tours the world as a conductor of his own works. He is also known for his Virtual Choir projects, bringing together individual voices from around the globe via internet into an online choir. In March 2016, he was appointed Los Angeles Master Chorale’s first Artist-in-Residence at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. October was commissioned by a consortium of Nebraska bands. It is dedicated to Brian Anderson, who arranged the commission. Eric Whitacre wrote his own program note for the concert piece: October is my favorite month. Something about the crisp autumn air and the subtle change in light always make me a little sentimental, and as I started to sketch I felt that same quiet beauty in the writing. The simple, pastoral melodies and subsequent harmonies are inspired by the great English Romantics (Vaughan Williams, Elgar), as I felt that this style was also perfectly suited to capture the natural and pastoral soul of the season. I’m quite happy with the end result, especially because I feel there just isn’t enough lush, beautiful music written for winds. October was premiered on May 14th, 2000, and is dedicated to Brian Anderson, the man who brought it all together.

Ghoultide Scarols. In generations gone by, Halloween (a contraction of All Hallows’ Eve) was a celebration opening the 3-day observance of Allhallowtide, the season in the liturgical year dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints, martyrs, and all the faithful who have passed away. In colonial America, Anglicans in the South and Catholics in Maryland recognized All Hallow’s Eve in their church calendars, while in New England the Puritans were opposed to all church holiday celebrations, including Halloween and even Christmas. With large-scale Irish and Scottish immigration in the 19th century, Halloween became a major holiday in North America and was gradually assimilated into mainstream society. By 1910 or so, Halloween was being celebrated coast to coast by people of all social, racial, and religious backgrounds. By the late 20th century, thanks in large measure to Hollywood & the entertainment industry (with heavy support from the candy and snack companies that make trick or treat goodies), Halloween in America had lost virtually all its original religious connotations, and instead taken on a pretend-scary mood of mock-fright. An solemn church holiday became more of an occasion for fun. To get in on the frivolity, Church organist, hymn composer, and conductor Thomas Pavlechko made a heavy break with tradition in rewriting and rearranging a dozen favorite Christmas songs and carols in minor keys, adding Halloween flavored lyrics, and packaging the whole extravaganza as Ghoultide Scarols.

Legends Of The Air — May 13, 2017, Concert By The City Of Fairfax Band.

Colonel Arnald Gabriel, legendary conductor emeritus of The U.S. Air Force Band, will lead the City Of Fairfax Band in commemorating the Air Force’s 70th anniversary and his own 21-year legacy as the Air Force Band’s longest serving leader. Guest soloist will be Olivia Johann, the City of Fairfax Band 2017 Young Artist Competition winner. The annual contest supports the development of standout Northern Virginia high school instrumentalists planning music careers. Be there for a special evening with a true American hero!

For tickets — http://www.fairfaxband.org

Conductor: Robert Pouliot, music director.
Host: Rich Kleinfeldt.
Guest Conductor: Col. Arnald Gabriel (USAF, ret.).
Guest Artist: Olivia Johann, Thomas Jefferson High School.

Notes on the musical program . . .

American Hero (Bruce Broughton, 1945 – ). Film and television composer Bruce Broughton has written several highly acclaimed soundtracks over his extensive career, in addition to a number of instrumental solos and concert pieces for band, orchestra, and chamber ensembles. He is also a lecturer in composition at UCLA. American Hero was composed during the summer of 2000 and dedicated to Brigadier General Robert L. Scott Jr. (1908-2006), author of God Is My Co-Pilot, the story of Gen. Scott’s WW2 flying experiences. In musical terms, American Hero represents the qualities of courage, compassion, and nobility that are the hallmarks of all American heroes, young and old, no matter what walk of life they travel.

Sentimental Journey (music by Les Brown [1912-2001] & Ben Homer [1917-1975], words by Bud Greene [1897-1981].) Les Brown and His Band Of Renown had been performing the song, but were unable to record it because of a musicians’ strike. When the strike ended in 1945 the band recorded the tune and soon had themselves a top selling record – Doris Day’s first No. 1 hit. Because the song’s release coincided with the end of WW2 in Europe, it became the unofficial homecoming theme song for lots of returning veterans. The song describes someone about to take a train to a place they have a great emotional attachment for. It describes their mounting anticipation and they wonder why they ever roamed away. Les Brown himself wrote the concert band arrangement of the tune specially for Col. Arnald D. Gabriel, tonight’s guest conductor.

The Longest Day (Paul Anka, 1941 – ). The Longest Day is a 1962 epic WW2 war movie based on a 1959 book of the same title by author Cornelius Ryan, who dedicated the book to all the men of D-Day. The docudrama-style movie begins in the days leading up to D-Day, concentrating on events on both sides of the English Channel, such as the Allies waiting for a break in the poor weather and anticipating the reaction of the Axis forces defending northern France. The film pays particular attention to the decision by Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, Allied Supreme Commander, to go ahead despite the initial bad-weather reports, as well as reports about the divisions within the German High Command as to where an invasion might happen or what the response to it should be. Paul Anka, who wrote the title song of The Longest Day, also played the part of a U.S. Army Ranger in the film.

Eagle Squadron March (Kenneth J. Alford). Kenneth J. Alford is the pseudonym of Major Fredrick Joseph Ricketts of Her Majesty’s Royal Marines (1881-1945). Ricketts lied about his age so he could join the band of the Royal Irish Regiment in 1895, playing cornet, violin, and euphonium. He continued in the army until 1927, when he was commissioned into the Royal Marines as a Director of Music. He retired in 1944 after nearly 50 years in uniform. Alford is known for his stately and dignified military marches, many of which he wrote during the approach of WW2 as his own best effort at helping in the war effort by celebrating, in music, those who were defending Great Britain. His last two marches were Army of the Nile (celebrating British victory over Mussolini’s forces in Africa) and Eagle Squadron, which commemorates the participation of 244 American airmen who volunteered to fly with the Royal Air Force before the USA was drawn into the war. The American units (Squadrons 71, 121, and 133 of the Royal Air Force Fighter Command) were the Eagle Squadrons, formed in September 1940. During their two years of service, before their members left the RAF and joined the USAAF, they destroyed 73½ German planes, at a cost of 77 American and five British killed in action. Alford’s Eagle Squadron March uses musical quotations from The Star Spangled Banner, Rule Britannia, and the Royal Air Force March Past, plus a passing reference to Wagner’s “Ring” operas.

Salute to the Armed Services. Besides being our bulwark of national defense, the American Armed Forces are part of America’s popular culture as well as the personal identity of the many Americans who served, and of their families. The special songs linked to each branch of the service are as identifiable as the distinctive uniforms of the Army, Navy, Coast Guard, Marine Corps, and Air Force. The U.S. Army’s official song, adapted from John Philip Sousa’s “Field Artillery March,” is titled “The Army Goes Rolling Along.” “Anchors Aweigh” the official march of the United States Navy, was composed in 1906 by Charles A. Zimmermann, with lyrics by Alfred Hart Miles. Oldest of the service anthems is “The Marines’ Hymn,” with some versions of the lyrics said to date from the 19th century and a tune adapted from an 1867 French opera. “Semper Paratus” (Always Prepared), the Coast Guard anthem, was written in 1927 by USCG Captain Francis Saltus Van Boskerck. The U.S. Air Force song dates from 1938, when Robert MacArthur Crawford (the “Flying Baritone”) won a magazine contest for a musical composition that would become the official song of the U.S. Army Air Corps. In 1947, when the U.S. Air Force became a separate service, the song became the “Air Force Song.”

Honor With Dignity (Jari Villanueva, 1955 – ). Jari Villanueva is from Baltimore. He earned a Bachelor of Music Education degree in 1978 from Johns Hopkins University’s Peabody Conservatory and a Master of Music degree in 1984 from Kent State University, Ohio. Jari Villanueva retired from the United States Air Force after 23 years of service with The United States Air Force Band, Washington DC. In the Air Force Band he was a trumpeter, bugler, assistant drum major, staff arranger, and music copyist. He is considered the country’s foremost expert on military bugle calls, particularly Taps, which is sounded at military funerals. He was the Non-Commissioned Officer In Charge of the Air Force Band’s State Funeral Plans and NCOIC of the command post at Andrews AFB which oversaw the arrival and departure ceremonies for the late Presidents Reagan and Ford. As a ceremonial trumpeter, Villanueva participated in well over 5,000 ceremonies at Arlington National Cemetery, and served as assistant drum major leading The USAF Ceremonial Brass in military funerals at Arlington in addition to being responsible for all the music performed by the USAF Bands for state funerals. His composition titled Honor With Dignity is dedicated to the U.S. Air Force Honor Guard, whose official motto, reflecting the solemnity of the unit’s mission, is “To Honor with Dignity.” The intermezzo (“break strain”) of the march makes musical reference to a number of U.S. Air Force marches and songs.

Glenn Miller In Concert (arranged by Wayne Scott). Alton Glenn Miller began a solid mid-western life in Clarinda, Iowa, in 1904. When he was 3, his family homesteaded in Tryon, Nebraska. A pump organ, played by his mother, would fill their sod house with music. Moving again, as a teen, to Missouri, Miller earned money to buy a trombone by milking cows. He attended two years of college at the University of Colorado, but his interest in the new dance band music led him to leave school and try his luck in Los Angeles. He found work in several groups, including Ben Pollack’s orchestra, touring alongside a clarinetist named Benny Goodman. When Pollack’s orchestra moved to New York, Miller left the group to successfully freelance in that city. In 1934, he helped Ray Noble organize an orchestra that gained popularity through its radio broadcasts. Four years later, he started the Glenn Miller Orchestra (really, the second band with that name). With engagements at summer resorts in New York and New Jersey, together with radio broadcasts, the orchestra started breaking attendance records at his engagements. Contributing to the special sound of his arrangements was the use of the clarinet as the lead instrument, harmonically supported by saxophones. His recording of “Tuxedo Junction” sold 115,000 copies in the first week of its release. He earned the first gold record ever awarded for “Chattanooga Choo-Choo.” Too old to be drafted, Miller volunteered for the Navy in 1942, but they could not use his services. Undaunted, Miller persuaded the Army to accept him “to put a little more spring into the feet of our marching men and a little more joy into their hearts.” He joined the Army Air Corps as a Captain, later rising to the rank of Major. During WW2, Miller’s band entertained more than a million troops. On the night of December 15, 1944, Miller embarked on a military flight to Paris to make arrangements for a Christmas broadcast to the troops. The flight took off in foggy weather and was lost over the English Channel. His disappearance adds poignance to the nostalgic warmth of his music’s lasting appeal. Glenn Miller In Concert features “Little Brown Jug,” “At Last,” “ Chattanooga Choo-Choo,” Pennsylvania Six Five Thousand,” and “Moonlight Serenade.”

Flight (Claude T. Smith, 1932-1987). Claude Smith, from Monroe City, Missouri, started playing trumpet in 5th grade. He kept it up all through school and college (Central Methodist College, Fayette MO) until the army drafted him during the Korean War. Finding all the army band trumpet sections full up, he auditioned instead on French horn and won a position with the 371st Army Band (Ft. Leavenworth KS). After army service, Smith completed undergraduate studies at the University of Kansas (Lawrence KS). He taught instrumental music in Nebraska and Missouri junior and senior high schools before going on to teach composition and conduct the orchestra at Southwest Missouri State University. In 1978, Smith started full-time as composer and consultant for music publishers. During his career, he composed over 120 works for band, chorus, orchestra, and smaller ensembles. As a clinician and guest conductor, he received numerous awards and honors, including election as president of the Missouri Music Educators Association. Claude T. Smith’s concert march titled Flight is the official march of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum.

Lord, Guard & Guide (The Men Who Fly), by Robert Jager (1939 – ). Robert Jager was born in Binghamton NY in 1939 and received his education at the University of Michigan. He served as staff arranger at the Armed Forces School of Music while a member of the United States Navy. In 2001 he retired as Professor of Music and Director of Theory & Composition at Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville TN. Jager has over 65 published compositions for band, orchestra, and various chamber groupings, with more than 35 of those commissioned by such ensembles as the United States Marine Band and the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra. Jager’s composition titled Lord, Guard & Guide (The Men Who Fly) is a setting of the United States Air Force Hymn, whose lyrics are derived from a prayer by the poet Mary C.D. Hamilton:

Lord, guard and guide the men who fly
Through the great spaces of the sky;
Be with them traversing the air
In dark’ning storms or sunshine fair.

Thou who dost keep with tender might
The balanced birds in all their flight,
Thou of the tempered winds, be near,
That, having thee, they know no fear.

Control their minds with instinct fit
What time, adventuring, they quit
The firm security of land;
Grant steadfast eye and skilful hand.

Aloft in solitudes of space,
Uphold them with Thy saving grace.
O God, protect the men who fly
Through lonely ways beneath the sky.

Concerto in C for Oboe (attr. Franz Joseph Haydn, 1732-1809). The baroque period was nearing a close during Haydn’s childhood and by the time of his death the world of music was getting ready for the outburst of personal feelings known as romanticism. Between those two periods, Haydn played an enormous part in establishing the style of music called classical. His music inspired Mozart, Cherubini, Beethoven, Schubert, and Brahms. (Haydn and Mozart were friends. They learned from each other and played chamber music together whenever they could get together in Vienna.) Haydn wrote an abundance of solo concertos, including 15 for piano, three for violin, two for horn, and two for cello, plus concertos for trumpet and flute. The Oboe Concerto in C, attributed to Haydn, is a classical era piece that may actually have been composed by one of Papa Haydn’s students or possibly one of his contemporaries, then later attributed to the master.

Kitty Hawk (John Cheetham, 1939 – ). John Cheetham, Professor of Music Theory and Composition at the University of Missouri-Columbia, was born in Taos, New Mexico, in 1939. He holds bachelor and masters degrees from the University of New Mexico, as well as the Doctor of Musical Arts in Composition from the University of Washington. During his tenure at Missouri, Dr. Cheetham has written works for band, orchestra, and numerous chamber compositions. Over 20 of his compositions have been published and recorded. He has been the recipient of numerous commissions, including those from the Kentucky Derby Museum, Tennessee Tech University, Texas Tech University, The New Mexico Brass Quintet, and the Summit Brass. His concert march Kitty Hawk commemorates the place on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, chosen for its steady winds for lift and its beach sands for soft landings, where after four years of experiments Wilbur and Orville Wright achieved the first successful airplane flights in 1903. With courage and perseverance and wit, those self-taught engineers relied on teamwork and application of the scientific process. Their world-changing achievement is celebrated in John Cheetham’s lively concert march. (Biographical material by Foothill College Symphonic Winds, Los Altos Hills, California. Used by permission.)

Hymn to the Fallen (John Williams, 1932 – ).With Saving Private Ryan, John Williams has written a memorial for all the soldiers who sacrificed themselves on the altar of freedom in the Normandy Invasion of June 6, 1944. Pay particular attention to the cue titled Hymn to the Fallen, which never appears anywhere in the main text of the film, only at the end credit roll. It’s a piece of music and a testament to John Williams’s sensitivity and brilliance that, in my opinion, will stand the test of time and honor forever the fallen of this war and possibly all wars. In all of our 16 collaborations, Saving Private Ryan probably contains the least amount of score. Restraint was John Williams’s primary objective. He did not want to sentimentalize or create emotion from what already existed in raw form. Saving Private Ryan is furious and relentless, as are all wars, but where there is music, it is exactly where John Williams intends for us the chance to breathe and remember.(From the soundtrack album note by producer-director Steven Spielberg.)

 

Seeing Better By Degrees.

This afternoon I picked up new eyeglasses, with new lenses that were prescribed following a vision test done 3 weeks after (successful) cataract surgery.  I’m seeing non-fuzzy for the 1st time in weeks.

During the vision test, I reminded the ophthalmologist that I’m crosseyed, that my old eyeglasses incorporated 4 degrees (out) of prismatic correction in the left lens plus 6 degrees (out) in the right lens. The doctor held up a 10-degree prism right in front of 1 eye & then the other while I focused on a point in the middle distance, & he watched my eye movements as he blocked my eyes 1 at a time in alternation.  “Yes,” he said, “you still need 10 degrees total, but let’s make it 5 + 5 rather than 4 + 6.”  So that’s how he wrote the optical prescription for all 3 new pairs of eyeglasses.

The glasses I picked up this afternoon are specialty bifocals, with distance prescription on top & midrange prescription in a raised inset — for reading music. Midrange is perfect for seeing sheets of music in front of me on a music stand. The midrange inset is raised just enough so that my view through that section, right up to the top line of the inset, puts everything in focus up to the top of the music stand. Above that, the part of the lens ground for distance lets me see clearly over the top of the music stand where I can view the maestro waving his baton.  There is no close-up (reading) lens.

As it happens, the only glasses ready to pick up today were the music glasses, even though I ordered new everyday trifocals at the same time. So I won’t be doing any conventional reading for a few more days. The new music glasses are OK for driving & watching TV & using the desktop computer, so the inconvenience is minimal.

New everyday trifocals — distance + midrange, + close-up (reading) — should be ready in the next day or 2.  At the same time I picked up the completed music glasses, I ordered new computer bifocals (reading + midrange — no distance), so maybe those will be ready by the end of the week, I don’t know.

In any case, it’s great to be seeing things clear & bright & in sharp focus once again.  Nothing like peering through obsolete eyeglasses for 3 weeks to stoke one’s appreciation for up-do-date glasses fitted with just the right optics — not to mention the clarity of vision provided by precision artificial lenses that were surgically implanted in place of my old cataract-clouded natural lenses.

Re-Use Is The Sincerest Form Of Recycling.

Canada decided to eliminate the penny from Canadian coinage. That leaves them with millions & millions of obsolete Canadian pennies on hand serving no purpose whatever. (Unless the Canadians have already melted down all their withdrawn pennies.)

Meanwhile, it costs the U.S. Mint well over 1¢ apiece to make USA pennies, & the Mint keep on stamping out millions & millions more of those, losing money in the process at a rapid clip.

So the USA should legalize Canadian pennies for use south of the border, at the same time offering to buy all the Canadian pennies that have gone obsolete north of the border so they can be used south of the border. 

Paying Canada 1¢ per penny for its huge supply of obsolete brown coins featuring Elizabeth II on 1 side & the Canadian maple leaf on the other side is way cheaper than stamping out more USA pennies at cost of 1.7 cents each with Honest Abe on 1 side & something else on the flip side.

Shouldn’t take much getting used to here in the U.S.

Shux, Canadian pennies already mingle freely if informally in USA coinage as it is anyway, not in massive volume but frequently enough so that getting 1 in change in unremarkable.

So lets recycle all those Canadian pennies down here in the USA. Save Uncle Sam major money while paying Canada a little something for truckloads of coins it already decided are no longer worth anything up north.

Win + win.

Waste not, want not.