HOMEPAGE SPRING 2005

Posted 1 April  2005

Welcome to the Tim Reynish Website

Very best wishes to you all for the rest of 2005.

SINGAPORE MAGIC

2004 ended on a very high note for me with a month residency in Singapore. 

I cannot recommend Singapore too highly for a holiday next July to attend the WASBE Conference

Food, hotels, shopping, transport, facilities and incredible hospitality are all unsurpassed, and of course there will be nearly twenty concerts and repertoire sessions.

See you all there.

USA TURMOIL

The Kids Play Great……. But That Music

Since then I have had a fascinating five weeks in USA, fascinating especially because of the problems and queries thrown up by a brilliant article in the Washington Post of January 30th by Stephen Budiansky which set the cat amongst the pigeons. After years of attending terrible school concerts, he writes on Why there’s so much bad music in the school curriculum - and what we can do about it.

I suspect that here lies the answer to a lot of questions, another of which was why the excellent CBDNA Conference in New York was ignored by the critics? This led to a provocative query posted on the CBDNA website by Frank Battisti..

Is it time for those of us who want to secure a position for the wind band/ensemble in the Art of Music community to formulate and initiate a strategy for educating the musical establishments critics and tastemakers, foundations, benefactors, managers, entrepreneurs and musical leaders about what we are doing and what we have accomplished?

Do we have a future in the canon of “real” music? Budiansky and Battisti might have the answer jointly, in tackling root causes at the same time trying to influence the “music profession”. Time for a top level discussion somewhere!

Have a great year.

Tim Reynish

NEW COMMISSION

The latest commission in our series in memory of our third son William will be from the distinguished composer and broadcaster, Michael Berkeley, and it will be premiered at the Barbican in London by the Guildhall School of Music in a gala concert on October 24th, 2005.

NEW FILES TO BE POSTED THIS SPRING

Conducting – Warm ups by Mark Heron

Composers - Richard Rodney Bennett

Composers – Derek Bourgeois, a full list of works for wind

Repertoire – Music for Chorus and Wind Orchestra

WASBE – 2003 Conference recordings and concert reviews listed

FOR YOUR MAY DIARY

No ticket required.

TWO BIRTHDAY COMPOSERS OF THE MONTH

1905 4th April - Eugène Bozza

1935 9th April - Aulis Sallinen

IN MEMORIAM

Andreas Makris 1930 – 2005

THREE RECORDINGS OF THE MONTH

Volume 1 of my International Series was sold out before Christmas

It is now available in a second pressing from Mark Custom or Shattinger

INTERNATIONAL REPERTOIRE SERIES VOLUME 1

University of Kentucky Wind Ensemble vol 1 (4949-MCD)

INTERNATIONAL REPERTOIRE SERIES VOLUME 3

Royal College of Music, London (5600-MCD)

NOW ALSO ON SALE AT AMAZON

AND OUT THIS SPRING

Dances with Wind - RNCM Wind Orchestra/Clark Rundell Chandos 10284

THREE BOOKS OF THE MONTH

THREE major additions to your library, two of which are essential reference books to books to go alongside PROGRAM NOTES FOR BAND by Norman E Smith

Essential reference book available from $55 from Bayside Music

For Book Reviews point to the title

AN ANNOTATED GUIDE TO WIND CHAMBER MUSIC

Rodney Winther, published by Donald Hunsberger Wind Library 2004, Warner Bros

BEST MUSIC FOR CHORUS AND WINDS 

Keith Kinder, published by Manhattan Beach Music 2005, edited Bob Margolis

THE AMERICAN WIND BAND

Richard K Hansen, published by GIA publications, 2005.

PREMIERES OF THE MONTH

PROFESSIONAL & UNIVERSITY

Saxophone Concerto by Mike Mower, April 18 at University of Kentucky, Lexington, Miles Osland soloist conducted by Cody Birdwell

COMMUNITY BAND

Street Song by Pete Meechan April 23 at Pyramid, Warrington, UK

North Cheshire Concert Band Conductor Mark Heron

TIM REYNISH ENGAGEMENTS ACADEMIC YEAR 2005 - 2006

5th September – 3rd December 2006

Senior Wind Professor in Residence

c/o Helena Gaunt

helena.gaunt@gsmd.ac.uk

Deputy Head of Wind, Brass and Percussion

Guildhall School of Music and Drama

Barbican

Silk Street

London EC2Y 8DT

0207 3825282

10th January – 18 May 2006

Visiting Assistant Professor

C/o Arthur Ostrander, Dean

ostrande@ithaca.edu

Professor of Music

Ithaca College School of Music

Ithaca, NY 14850

USA

(607) 274-3364

BASBWE has a new website, WINDS has a new editor. The new editor of WINDS has made the magazine far more informative and glossy. Send articles and information to Richard Edwards windsmagazine@btinternet.com

SOME BRITISH COMPOSERS WEBSITES

David Bedford

Derek Bourgeois

Adam Gorb

Edward Gregson

Kenneth Hesketh

Stephen McNeff

Philip Sparke

Philip Wilby

Guy Woolfenden

BOOK REVIEWS

AN ANNOTATED GUIDE TO WIND CHAMBER MUSIC

For Six to Eighteen Players

Rodney Winther, published by Donald Hunsberger Wind Library, Warner Bros

A great sadness about quitting fulltime teaching at the Royal Northern College of Music is missing out on the regular rehearsals and concerts with small conducted chamber winds and brass. Any success that we may have had with the RNCM Wind Ensemble was largely due to this detailed work and the professional understanding that the players had with each other within the ensemble. Any wind and brass programme should explore this repertoire, and now a world map is available from Rodney Winther of the College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati.

Hundreds of works are included, from the little J C Bach Symphonies of 1778 for wind sextet, right through to Xenakis, Fricker and Sir Peter Maxwell Davies. Rodney gives us his top 101 favorite pieces; there are several in there that I hear as little more than academic exercises, and I would certainly add the Alwyn Flute Concerto, the Willard Elliott Five Impressions, both which I adore.

For each work, we are given date of composition, duration, performance difficulty, discography and a general biography and programme note, often leading on towards other discoveries. My slightest caveats are concerned with the system of cataloguing. The Author’s list of Top 101 compositions is arranged alphabetically. There is then an excellent listing by composer, with title and instrumentation, but without a page reference. This list is repeated at the end of the book but without the instrumentation. It does have the usual shorthand for the instrumentation; 1222:2000 stands for flute and pairs of oboes, clarinets, bassoons and horns, a system I would find far clearer in the main section of the book. This is however arranged by ensemble, with, in huge type, the instrumentation first, i.e. TWO FLUTES, TWO OBOES and TWO BASSOONS. Perhaps I am the only person in the world to find these listings in caps intrusive. I am confused; I am sure that it could be set out more clearly but I am equally sure that I will cope and use the book almost every day. This is a major resource.

BEST MUSIC FOR CHORUS AND WINDS

Keith Kinder, published by Manhattan Beach Music 2005, edited Bob Margolis

Keith Kinder puts all of us in his debt with the latest edition in the Best Music Series, published by Bob Margolis. This is a listing, with critical\commentary, orchestration and duration of over one hundred works for chorus and winds. As Frank Ticheli says in his foreword, this guide is extraordinary not only for the repertoire it uncovers, but also for the concise and crystal-clear picture the author gives of each work…..information on the historical context, musical style and language, text and difficulty level.

Nearly all of what I consider the major masterpieces for the genre are there, the Bruckner Mass in E Minor, Honneger’s King David, Michael Ball’s companion piece to the Stravinsky Mass, his virtuoso Pageant, Edward Gregson’s Missa Brevis Pacem and Henze's Muses of Sicily.

I had hoped to find out more about Honneger’s Nicholas der Flu, which I remember from a memorable performance at WASBE 2001 in Lucerne, but which had no programme to accompany it. It was couched in a similar language to King David, and as I recall had brass band as well as wind orchestra, with soloists and choirs, very moving. I cannot believe that Keith does not know of it, and can only assume that it did not make the cut.

If there were to be an addendum, and I do hope that Keith will update it regularly as new works of excellence emerge. I would suggest three British works for consideration, A Passion for our Time by Philip Wilby, Joseph Phibb’s Rainland and Anthony Hedges' A Manchester Mass, and one I have yet to hear, Jonah commissioned by Mark Heron for his amateur group, North Cheshire Wind Band by Emily Howard.

I very much enjoyed a work on John Boyd’s Elf recording ELFCD1005, John Boyd Conducts American. Floyd Werle’s Symphony no 2 for Winds is a title, which disguises the fact that it includes parts for a rock combo, and a vocal quartet on hand-held mikes, with a narrator. Werle disarmingly states that I do not intend that all this should be taken too deadly seriously, but more as a much needed recreation and “fun” piece after too much time in the rarefied atmosphere of the heavy heavies.

My final American addition to the listing would be Cosmosis, a fascinating work for soprano solo, women’s voices and wind orchestra by Susan Botti, premiered at the CBDNA 2005 Conference by University of Michigan with the composer as soloist.

This is a major addition for your library, and should stand proudly next to Norman Smith’s Band Notes as an essential addendum; buy a copy for your choral director, it should be in his/her library as well.

THE AMERICAN WIND BAND

Richard K Hansen, published by GIA publications, 2005.

This is a fascinating book, which at the same time includes a scholarly assessment of contemporary music for wind band alongside a wonderful narrative of the emergence of modern America and its turbulent social and political history. It is on any level a terrific read but also it has an underlying intellectual argument, which adds much to the growth of literature about the wind band movement.

At nearly 500 pages, I suspect that it is a bedside book for dipping into, as well as a standard classic for any music literature class. I have been browsing through it, prior to a really good read on my next holiday and found that the juxtaposition of major events and the works they spawned is fascinating. I am sad that Rick’s discussion of works influenced by war did not unearth Heisinger’s Statements, a wonderful piece of music drama, introducing players to aleatoric techniques as well as confronting their own personal and political beliefs.

I do not know of another book about wind music which pins the emergence of repertoire so closely to political and artistic developments. A section of over one hundred pages traces History, Events and Ideas alongside The related Arts in America and Western Civilisation, Music in the United States and American Band Music. I found the background information on the civil war fascinating.

The book is in three sections. Part one deals with what he calls The Story; Affirmations and revisions of the Past, tracing the movement through the golden age of the military and civil bands of the 19th century, the developments post first world war, the emergence of the wind ensemble concept up to the plethora of organisations, aims and visions of today.

In part two, the story is given a more continuous historical context, while part three is entitled Research; the Hopeful Pursuit of Discovery. Hansen draws on numerous sources, American and international for his book. The text is liberally sprinkled with contemporary criticism and typical concert programmes, and he dips into the listing of research documents; the bibliography will lead the reader on to further reading and is itself worth the price.

In 1985, the late Frederick Fennell gave a visionary keynote speech to the WASBE Conference in Kortrijk entitled Band Music and the Composer; Old-Fashioned pursuits in High Tech Society. Dr. Fennell’s influence on Rick Hansen’s thinking is evident throughout the book, as is the author’s love for the great man. The speech is given in full in an appendix, as is his keynote speech at WASBE in 1999 in California, Millennium Considerations. Thinking outside the box, he said in California:

Maybe it could just be that our presence in every guise on that fantastic creation of the century we shall be leaving – the Internet, maybe it can open some of those doors long closed to us. With it and our unbounded imagination we might awaken the sleeping past. With our powerful resource of sound and our as yet untried frontal attack on the receptivity of those who probably have not heard us at all, we possess those many powers needed to attract our audience.

To sum up, I can do no better than to quote and echo Fennell’s comment on Rick Hansen’s book:

A major contribution to the profile of Wind Band. All about what the band has never been to so many – an education for us all. The depth and breadth of ideas fairly jump off the page. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

ANDREAS MAKRIS 1930-2005

Improvisations-Rhythms (1975) by Andreas Makris

I have written enthusiastically about this work before – as long as you can remember.

Salt-Lake West-chest-er West-chest-er West-chest-er Ced-ar Ci-ty ….or whatever is suitable you should have no problems with teaching the multi-metres. The work is published by Ballerbach, and James Syler writes:

From the composer of Aegean Festival Overture this exciting two-part work is rooted in the composer’s Greek heritage and reflects a unique compositional style. The work builds to multi-meter dance and ends with a big finish. This is a contemporary work that balances its forward looking language with accessible traditional dance elements. The type of work that can fit into any program. Makris who died earlier this year, was for many years a violinist in the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, DC. 
Duration: 6’ Gr. 5 Full Set $100. Extra Score $13. Published by Ballerbach

CELEBRATE THE LIFE AND WORKS OF ANDREAS MAKRIS

j.steven.moore@colostate.edu

Steven Moore writes:

The primary piece that you should consider is "Aegean Festival" arranged by Major Albert Bader. My new edition of this work returns it to it's original length of 14 minutes, as well as it' original intent (Bader's transcription cut out 20 percent). It is available for rental through ECS (www.ecspub.com). Also "Mediterannean Holiday" is a nice work written for band.

SOLO CLARINET, ALTO SAXOPHONE & FLUTE WORKS

There are several pieces available through Southern Music Company (www.southernmusic.com) that are terrific, particularly "Intrigues" for solo clarinet and band; "Fantasy and Dance" for solo alto saxophone and band; and "Concertino" for flute and chamber ensemble may be available now as well. These requires fairly accomplished solo performers on clarinet and sax, but not too difficult for the flute. 

NEWS AROUND THE ATLANTIC

NEW WORK FOR BUTLER TOUR TO RUSSIA

News from Robert Grechesky rgreches@butler.edu of a tour to St Petersburg, Russia, with the band, orchestra and jazz ensemble of Butler University. In February he conducted the premiere of a ballet set for wind band by Frank Felice.

January, 2005 - Butler University's music department has a new website up and running, and the music which plays when its home page opens is the "Triple Pas De Deux" from The Willow Maiden, played by Butler Symphony, conducted by Kelly Corcoran. It's only a minute long, but features a small snippet from the Third Suite from that ballet -- additional music from the ballet will be played in February in Clowes Hall with the Butler Wind Ensemble, conducted by Robert Grechesky. This piece, Fanfare and Dances from the Court of the Woodland King, will be played on that groups' tour to St. Petersburg, Russia in mid-March.

FROM MALLORCA

At the end of last year, Derek Bourgeois was guest conductor in Fribourg in a programme of his music. He writes: 

Fribourg was fantastic. It's a really good wind band there called La Concordia. To thank them for all their kindness I am just finishing a new wind band piece for them called "Fribourg - The Old City". I've interrupted the 19th Symphony to write it.

He also reports that the President and Conductor (Robert Fores) of the Banda Musica Primitiva de Lliria yesterday have chosen the Cotswold Symphony for the big National Contest this year, and have requested a part for the 12 cellos they have in their band of 150 musicians!

More information from his website www.tramuntana.infoarta.com

GORB CHAMBER PIECE FOR MINNEAPOLIS

Programme Notes - French Dances Revisited (2003-2004) Adam Gorb writes:

French Dances Revisited was conceived during an exercise I set some of my students, which was to write a variation on the Bach keyboard prelude in C BVW 939 for double wind quintet. Subsequently I thought it a good idea to take this same prelude and use it as a basis for a kind of Baroque suite for the same combination. I hope that what I've written doesn't sound too much like a pastiche, but more as an act of reverence for the music of Bach which I have always found so life enhancing.

The six movements of the work follow the model of the Baroque French suite. The first movement is an Overture featuring an angular introduction followed by a fugato in 5/4 time. There follows a stately Allemande led by flute and bassoon, a lively Courante in fast triple time, a mournful Sarabande featuring solo oboe and horn and a Gavotte that also pays homage to Neo-classicism. The piece ends with a Gigue , which makes much use of canonic writing. Towards the end the stern dotted rhythms of the opening of the work reappear before the mood lightens for an exuberant ending.

In this piece I've also tried to follow a procedure of a certain flexibility of instrumentation which has been perhaps the hardest challenge. The two horn parts can be played on saxophones, the music of the second bassoon can be played on a bass clarinet and the oboe 2 part should also work on a clarinet.

French Dances Revisited lasts about fifteen minutes. 

http://www.adamgorb.co.uk

BRITISH JAZZ IN KENTUCKY

University of Kentucky is currently in the process of organizing a consortium for a new work by British composer Mike Mower. The composition is titled Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Wind Orchestra and will be premiered by the University of Kentucky Wind Ensemble under the direction of John Cody Birdwell on April 18 in Lexington, Kentucky. Miles Osland, Professor of Saxophone at the University of Kentucky, will be the featured soloist for the premiere of the work. Mower`s Concerto for Flute and Wind Orchestra was premiered last spring by the Texas Tech University Symphonic Wind Ensemble, and that work continues to receive frequent performances by ensembles throughout the United States and abroad.

I have had the distinct pleasure of receiving the funding for a major research grant from the University of Kentucky of which I titled: The Development, Documentation and Dissemination of New Works for Saxophone. Part of this project is seed money for a consortium to commission Mike Mower to compose a new piece for alto saxophone and wind orchestra.

For those of you not familiar with Mike Mower and his work, his work with the Itchy Fingers Saxophone Quartet is legendary, and his flute sonata - Sonata Latina is rapidly becoming standard literature within the classical flute repertoire.

Needless to say, I am very excited about this project. I have had the privilege of hearing snippets of the first movement of his three movement Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Wind Orchestra, and let me tell you, it's an exciting and challenging, but listener (and wind ensemble) friendly piece that will certainly become a major addition to our repertoire.

If you wish to participate or receive further information, please contact me at: miles.osland@uky.edu

AN IRISH TUNE FOR CARNEGIE HALL

William Berz of Rutgers writes that he recently finished recording Song of Lir - a really great piece. The CD should be released in the coming summer.

We are also performing it in Carnegie Hall in March and I am conducting it with a high school band at the Pennsylvania Music Educators conference in April. You can see that I have taken a liking to it.

FROM COSTA RICA TO MADRID

Susan Campos campos_susan@hotmail.com writes that she is studying on a scholarship at the Real Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid. The course is about Ibero-american music patrimony. The last week I have a concert like guest conductor with the Alaquas wind orchestra in Valencia. Remarkable musicians. The program included three works of the Costa Rican composer Allen Torres y Benjamín Gutièrrez, Holst 1st suite in Eb, and the suite "Navarra" of Adam Ferrero, Valencian composer. Amazing experience!

Well, the course of musicology finished in april 21, and I return to Costa Rica the day 28, to start my postgraduate research about the Costa Rican wind band music, with special emphasis in critical edition of the band works of our composer Julio Fonseca. This will be the beginning of my research about Centro-american band music. Any information on bibliography and resource on wind band music critical edition methodology would be welcome.