HOMEPAGE AUGUST 2005

Welcome to the Tim Reynish Website

Tim Reynish chasing a Singapore soloist

Greetings to you all as you prepare for the Fall Semester, the Autumn Term, the Summer term and holidays, or just the 2005-2006 season, and many thanks to everyone who has written about the website.

This Homepage will include repertoire and a few thoughts on WASBE 2005 at Singapore, will mention a couple of non-commercial composers who I think should be better known, and also celebrate the long-awaited re-release of the first CD we ever made at the Royal Northern College of Music. There are lists below of repertoire that I and various colleagues felt worth programming. For most of the concerts, we unfortunately received no information about contacting the conductors, composers or bands, but you will find more information on www.wasbe.com

I am spending the Fall of 2005 at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London, and the Spring of 2006 at Ithaca College, New York State, but you can still contact me on timreynish@tiscali.co.uk

Have a great term or semester until Deepavali, Hari Raya Puasa, Hannukah, Christmas and the Winter or Summer solstice.

Best wishes

Tim

HOMEPAGE INDEX FOR AUGUST

To go to entry, put your mouse on the title

NEW FILES UPLOADED SINCE MAY

NEW COMMISSIONING OPPORTUNITY

RECOMMENDED WORKS FROM 2005 WASBE CONFERENCE

PREMIERE OF THE CONFERENCE - Sang Nila by Zechariah Goh Toh Chai

RECORDS OF THE CONFERENCE - Order the set from Mark Custom Records

SCHOOL SCORE OF THE CONFERENCE - Okaoka by Christopher Marshall

SCORES OF THE MONTH - Clarinet Concertos by McNeff and Pütz

COMPOSER OF THE CONFERENCE - Marco Pütz, Luxembourg

DISCOVERY OF THE MONTH - Symphonic Variations by Oliver Waespi

RECORD OF THE MONTH - RNCM plays Gorb, Ellerby, Poole and Clarke 

WASBE, ELITISM and BIRTHDAYS - Thoughts on the 2005 Conference

BARBICAN CONCERT - 24TH OCTOBER 2005

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New files: NEW FILES JUNE/JULY/AUGUST

04/08/05 Repertoire: Conference Review WASBE 2005 

Repertoire - Major works premiered 2003-2005

Repertoire – Clarinet and Wind Band/Orchestra/Ensemble

25/07/05 Repertoire: American Wind Symphony Orchestra

18/07/05 Repertoire: German Wind Music Classics

06/07/05 Repertoire: Conference Reviews WASBE 1995

06/07/05 Repertoire: Conference Reviews Finland 2005

23/06/05 Repertoire: British Wind Music for Schools

23/06/05 Conducting 5: Knowing the Conductor's Role

23/06/05 Repertoire: Saxophone and Wind Band/Orchestra/Ensemble

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STOP PRESS

A re-issue on Klavier of the historic first recording by the Royal Northern College of Music Wind Orchestra of contemporary British wind music, with sleeve notes by Giles Easterbrook.

K 11152     METROPOLIS NOW AVAILABLE

RNCM WIND ORCHESTRA, Timothy Reynish & Clark Rundell, Conductors

GORB: Metropolis

ELLERBY: Paris Sketches

POOLE: Sailing with Archangels

CLARKE: Samurai

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COMMISSIONING OPPORTUNITY

Discussions are under way with EDWARD GREGSON (Website: www.edwardgregson.com ) to set up an international consortium to commission a Symphony for premiere performance in 2007. The commissioning contribution will be $500, and those entering the consortium will be provided with a score and a recording of the premiere, together with a set of parts. 

Anyone interested in joining this consortium should contact Clare Scott at the email address Clare.Scott@RNCM.ac.uk declaring interest.

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WORKS RECOMMENDED FROM WASBE 2005 CONFERENCE

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A close friend and colleague joined me in selecting works from the morning repertoire sessions which we felt will be found generally useful. He wrote:

By far the most worthwhile part of the conference for me was the Repertoire Sessions by Jim Cochran. While I had heard of or already done about 20% of these pieces the others were interesting and new. I looked forward to and felt rewarded for attending each session and wish they would have been recorded.

FROM 9.AM REPERTOIRE SESSIONS, DIRECTOR JIM COCHRAN

(Bold type are three works which I added)

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PREMIERE OF THE CONFERENCE

For many of us, the highlight of the music at the WASBE Conference was a work for choir and wind orchestra Sang Nila by the Singapore composer Zechariah Goh Toh Chai. Chai studied at the University of Kansas, and I already knew his very fine Concertino for Alto Saxophone and Wind Ensemble. This is a tautly constructed work with an energy and use of motivic writing a little reminiscent of Bartok. I hope to publish it or at least make it readily available.

Adam Gorb wrote of Sang Nila:

This was a haunting and magical work for chorus and band, featuring chanting and beguiling bell sounds. Here the influence of Gamelan music was triumphantly integrated into the musical language; the static harmonic field in this context was totally appropriate. The composer, who conducted this premiere has clearly absorbed many musical directions of the last fifty years, and the final choral passage with vowel sounds paying homage to Stockhausen’s ‘Stimmung’ was most memorable. Here is a composer whose original voice deserves to be heard worldwide.

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RECORDS OF THE CONFERENCE

Unusually for a WASBE Conference, I am unable to recommend one or more concerts to purchase above the rest. I have ordered them all from Mark Custom, as usual, and I will listen again to works which perhaps I missed or in which I dozed off (7 hours time difference for those from UK). My gut reaction to the Conference is to recommend you to buy the complete set for WASBE 2003 and 2005, or perhaps order the Highlights CD of 2005 that Mark Morette will have on sale at Mark Custom

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SCHOOL SCORE OF THE CONFERENCE

Christopher Marshall was one of a number of composers present, and he responded to a commission from Jim Cochran with a Samoan Dance Okaoka, which he translates into English as “Wow”! The singer tells his love that she reminds him of a tin of corned beef, they begin to dance, more and more people join in, the dance gets faster and faster, until it reaches double speed when it drops back to tempo primo, all energy is dissipated, and the dance disappears into the tropical night.

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SCORES OF THE MONTH

Two works premiered this Spring but unfortunately not played at Conference were fine clarinet concertos by Marco Pütz and Stephen McNeff. I have referred to these in my new Repertoire article on Concertos for Clarinet and Wind Orchestra.

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COMPOSER OF THE CONFERENCE - MARCO PÜTZ

For many years WASBE member Marco Pütz has been writing a series of functional works which are in a traditional musical language and yet are dramatic and romantic without falling into the hackneyed cliché of more commercial music. His Improvisation and Fugato, commissioned by WASBE Germany, was a big success, as was Derivations, an obligatory piece for Fanfare Bands at this year’s Kerkrade contest. I especially love his earlier work, Meltdown, and I was delighted to introduce in my clinic his latest work, the Clarinet Concerto commissioned by Don DeRoche for his wife Julie to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary.

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DISCOVERY OF THE MONTH

Another WASBE composer who is developing a fine command of the idiom of the wind band is the Swiss composer Oliver Waespi, due to come to London to study at the Royal Academy of Music in September. His Symphonic Variations was premiered at the Mid-Europe Festival last summer by the Swiss Army Band and it is an imposing work with some terrific sonorities. The “theme” is an imposing sequence of chords, which are developed symphonically. I enjoyed Oliver’s Horn Concerto, which was recently premiered in its orchestral version, and I am programming this work in 2006. Highly recommended

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WASBE, ELITISM & BIRTHDAYS

WASBE – promoting symphonic bands and ensembles as serious and distinctive mediums of musical expression and culture.

As always, meeting colleagues from round the world and being able to discuss wind music 24/7 was stimulating, but somehow the primary WASBE objective was often missed, and we were offered a great deal of sub-standard commercial music poorly played. A senior member of the WASBE Council explained that they had deliberately tried to pick a balanced programme that avoided the charges of elitism.

Elite – a chosen or select part; the pick or flower of anything

That is precisely why I joined WASBE, to hear and learn about the élite of the world’s music at Grades 1 to 6, for schools, for chamber ensemble, for amateur bands, for military bands, for small college, university, conservatoire and professional bands, preferably played by the élite of the world’s bands.

Depression set in swiftly during the Conference, and I actually left Singapore two days earlier than planned. I thus arrived in time for a wonderful BBC Prom performance of Die Walküre, with Ros Plowright as Fricka; we had last worked together in the Verdi Requiem. I was able to see a video of the Prom Tippett’s Child of our Time, with Christine Rice, who sang for me in Britten’s Rape of Lucretia. I was away from commercialism and compromise and back to musical normality!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY…….err

The BBC Proms, which claims to be the greatest Festival of music in the world, has been celebrating anniversaries of a number of composers who have contributed great works to the canon of wind music.

What a pity that neither CBDNA nor WASBE celebrated the centenary of either Tippett, Hartmann or Lambert or the 70th anniversary of Sallinen or of Maw.

WIND MUSIC IN THE MAINSTREAM

Actually the BBC missed out on Sallinen, but however uncompromising CBDNA might be, and however commercial WASBE might be, we cannot escape the fact that we are a little part of the mainstream of music, and we must be thankful that these five composers have composed great works for our medium.

I would have also included in the BBC Proms some of the film music of William Alwyn, and in the WASBE Conference, a performance of his magical Concerto for Flute and 8 Wind Instruments, (WE PLAYED IT IN Manchester in 1991) scored for the same combination as the Gounod Petite Symphonie. Well, maybe CBDNA and WASBE can celebrate these composers in 2055.

My wind band depression was quickly dispersed when I was sent three superb new CDs of repertoire from Louis Martinuus, a recording of Mike Mower’s amazing saxophone concerto, and a score from Michael Berkeley of my latest commission, which he and I began to discuss in 1982! 

It was good to hear the Prom premiere of Michael’s Concerto for Orchestra, and the following night the premiere of Thea Musgrave’s Turbulent Landscapes. Her concerto for marimba and wind ensemble, Journey through a Japanese Landscape, was actually recorded in the superb Singapore Esplanade concert hall by Evelyn Glennie.

Helped by Michael and Thea, I began to recover my enthusiasm for the huge potential of the wind orchestra, and to look forward to my next gig, with world premieres of works by Michael Berkeley and Harrison Birtwistle, alongside music by Adam Gorb, David Kechley and Magnus Lindberg.

GALA CONCERT TO CELEBRATE 125TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDING OF THE GUILDHALL

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