Click on the links above for BASBWE, CBDNA, WASBE and NBA websites
NEW:
July 22 – 25 UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI and the COLLEGE CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC
Workshop with Rodney Winther
The application screening process will begin on March 1. At such time, you may download the brochure/application form from http://www.uc.edu/ccm/winds/summer.htm
*** Conductor Training Weekend 2-4 May 2008 ***
TIM REYNISH WEBSITE
HOMEPAGE March 2008
LATE NEWS – As at 13th March, the monthly number of unique hits on this website is over 7000 for the first time !!
Many thanks to all of you who check in and of course to my long-suffering webmaster, Mike Grieff. Mike and I would appreciate your ideas on how the site could be made more user friendly and useful – maybe if I just stop writing so much rubbish and tidy it all up. In any case, any comments and queries will be dealt with when I can – send them to me at
Have a great Spring and Summer, or Autumn and Winter.
Many greetings from Las Vegas as I prepare to enter my eighth decade. I have spent an interesting February experiencing school and university bands in Nevada (average temperature in the mid 60’s in February) and Alberta (average temperature 20 below!) The greatest experience was hearing the Calgary Stampede Band of about 100 singing Lauridsen’s O Magnum Mysterium quite beautifully, and then playing it with the same expression and emotion. I then conducted Steve Bryant’s prizewinning Radiant Joy – there is not much to beat the Stampede Band’s sousaphones when they suddenly appear. But so many groups both sides of the border play easy commercial music which they know will make a hit in the next Festival. Where is the challenge, the excitement, the radiant joy? I reflected grumpily on Percy Grainger writing over fifty years ago:
TO ALL MILKSOPS OF SISSIFIED MOTHER’S DARLINGS
Don’t mind if you play a few wrong notes; don’t mind if you get the rhythms wrong. Please don’t think that I will suffer if you do. My job is to show you what modern music is like. I’d much rather hear you make a mess of typical modern music than to hear you tootling forever at a lot of baby’s stuff.
He was writing about the efforts of one concert organiser to stop him from conducting the two most difficult movements of Lincolnshire Posy. He goes on:
I
hate forcing my will on the folk. But more still do I hate shielding-the-wind
from all these milksops of sissified mother’s darlings
who sit there yawning in the band, thinking they’ve played everything
and know everything. If they want me to do anything with them I’ll jolly well
see to it that they get something to chew on and taste some of the rocks on the
rocky road of now-timey tone-art.
SAVE YOUR STUDENTS FROM BEING MILKSOPS OF SISSIFIED MOTHER’S DARLINGS
There
are two links below to guides to innovative non-commercial wind music for the 21st
century, a reflection on the NBA
Selective List, and links to the incredible library of Dr David Whitwell. For
more non-commercial music, you might explore two other links below. I am hugely
grateful to Dr Isaiah Odajima of
It was the great Frederick Fennell who warned against commercialism and insisted:
We
must learn to teach music - not band, not orchestra, not chorus, but music
itself...Choosing music is the single most important thing a band director can
do, and is the only thing a band director can do alone, made more important
because of the substandard repertoire continuously being published. So many
publishers in the business today are printers who don't care about quality, but
only about what will sell. We must not allow them to give the band a bad
reputation nor to make our decisions for us, since the music we choose today can
affect students for ever.
Let
me know on timreynish@tiscali.co.uk
if you need any further information about any of these works. Recordings are
available of many of them.
FOUR
LINKS TO NEW
AND OLD REPERTOIRE GUIDES
1
WILLIAM REYNISH COMMISSIONING PROJECT
2
BRITISH WIND
MUSIC 1981-2008 MAKING
IT BETTER
RECENTLY UPLOADED – This personal account of British Wind Music has been extensively revised and brought up to date.
3
Thoughts on
NATIONAL BAND
ASSOCIATION SELECTIVE LIST
FOURTEEN
LINKS TO CONDUCTING COURSES
CANFORD
SUMMER SCHOOL OF MUSIC
3
– 10 AUGUST INTERNATIONAL CONDUCTING COURSE
WITH PHILIP SCOTT, MARK HERON AND TIM REYNISH
7
– 12 JULY INTERLAKEN INTERNATIONAL CONDUCTING COURSE DOUGLAS
BOSTOCK and
CONDUCTING
COURSES IN THE
NEW-
FIVE NEW
No
excuse not to re-charge the conducting batteries this summer with two courses in
WILLIAM
REYNISH COMMISSIONING PROJECT
William,
our third son, died in May 2001, climbing on Sunday morning in the
His death came at a time when I was still at the Royal Northern College of Music. I had commissioned a wind piece from Matthew Taylor, and the College preferred not to help with the commissioning fee, so Hilary and I turned it into a work in memory of William and paid for it ourselves. This was the start of a six year commissioning project which has given the world no less than twenty works to date.
INDEX OF WORKS
WORKS FOR LESS EXPERIENCED PLAYERS
Aeolian Carillons Edwin Roxburgh Maecenas
Blackwater Fergal Carroll Maecenas
Deep Soul Diving Emily Howard
Passacaglia Timothy Jackson Maecenas
Song of Lir Fergal Carroll Maecenas
WORKS WELL WORTH LESS EPXERIENCED PLAYERS HAVING A GO
Blasket Dances Matthew Taylor Maecenas
Bright Spirit Judith Bingham Maecenas
Dances from Crete Adam Gorb Maecenas
L’Homme Armé. Christopher Marshall Maecenas
Resonance Christopher Marshall Maecenas
Symphony for William Derek Bourgeois HaFaBra
Trumpet Concerto Marco Putz Bronsheim
Vranjanka Kenneth Hesketh Faber
FOR PROFESSIONAL ENSEMBLE
Cloud of Unknowing Kenneth Hesketh Schott
An Elegy for Ur Edwin Roxburgh Maecenas
Slow Dawn Michael Berkeley OUP
Waves and Refrains David Horne Boosey & Hawkes
AWAITING PREMIERES
Partita Daniel Basford
The
Unfinished Symphony Geoffrey Poole
OUTSIDE
THE BOX – A LOOK AT THE NBA SELECTIVE MUSIC LIST
One of the many reasons for being a member of NBA is the terrific Selective Music List. Time and again conductors write to me to ask for information on an arranger or publisher for a specific piece of music; were they members of NBA, they would have to look no further than the website, for as of today there are no less than 1507 works listed, from Grade 1 to Grade 6, covering a huge range of music.
We are addicted to
lists, whether of the top ten hitters, the top ten golfers, top ten quarter
backs, top ten films, top ten news stories, top ten actors, top ten embarrassing
moments on television, so when WASBE was formed, the World Association for
Symphonic Bands and Ensembles, many hours were spent, I almost said wasted, on
trying to define a “core” repertoire. We were warned against lists by that
great composer and thinker, Warren Benson, but for the tyro band director, they
do have a use, and none is more useful than that of the NBA. I find that many of
the State Band Libraries, or Recommended Lists for Festivals, are very limited
and far from uptodate. Clearly, their compilers are greatly influenced by the
commercial side of publishing.
The NBA list has its fair share of commercial music, and does represent a cross-section of taste and artistic judgement. However, everyone will find favorite pieces missing, and there are certainly some gaps which might be filled in the next update. I would recommend at least some of the following works to be tried out by colleagues and perhaps incorporated.
From a cursory search, the most popular composer is Percy Grainger with 31 works; this repertoire includes both Hill Song No 1 and No 2, but omits two of my favorite Grainger works, the magnificent sweeping Marching Song of Democracy and the poignant Power of Rome and the Christian Heart. Grainger’s music ruins the gamut from Grade 3 to Grade 6 as do the works of Ticheli (20) and Holsinger (14). Like Ticheli, Adam Gorb (5) is 50 this year, and he is another who writes for all levels. He is now Head of Composition and Contemporary Performance at the Royal Northern College of Music , but wears his learning lightly as demonstrated by a number of charming pieces at Grade 2/3 level. Candlelight Procession (G&M Brand) is a moving introduction to 5/4 metre, Eine kleine Yiddische Ragmusik (G&M Brand) is another hilarious essay in Klezmer, while he explores teasing aleatoric textures in his most recent school wind band work, Sunrise and Safari, written for the 2007 Singapore Festival Contest. Also commissioned for school bands but more taxing are Bermuda Triangle (Maecenas). Another British composer well represented is Philip Sparke (5) but I would certainly add in his Four Norfolk Dances (Anglo) which are in the vein of the Malcolm Arnold Dances and very good fun.
Finding excellent
school music at Grade
Fergal Carroll is a young Irish composer who has contributed two fine works at Grade 3, Song of Lir and Blackwater, and at Grade 4 Winter Dances, all published by Maecenas/Masters Music. A magnificent work which I think provides a Mahlerian experience for players at Grade 3 and 4 is Bill Connor’s Tails aus dem Vood Viennoise.
At Grade 4/5, it is
much easier to find substantial works which players, con doctors and audiences
will enjoy. I felt that Martin Ellerby (1) is under-represented, and would
certainly suggest that Paris Sketches (Maecenas),
At Grade 5, there are
several newly published works from UK well worth
playing, including Hesketh’s (3) Vranjanka,
(Faber), Gorb’s Dances from Crete
(Maecenas)
and the New Zealand composer, Chris Marshall’s L”Homme
Armé and Resonance (Maecenas);
add to this Gregson’s The
Kings go Forth (Studio) and for those who want to experiment with
contemporary techniques, his Metamorphoses
(Noveelo).
From
DAVID
WHITWELL <davidwhitwell@msn > writes that his 13 volume History and
Literature of the Wind Band is now available from Ruh Music, Ltd., Soodstrasse
53, 8134
He writes:
Ruh also carries a large number of my editions of early original music for large
band, including,
Berlioz, Symphony for Band
Reicha, Symphony for Band (arr. for modern instruments)
Beethoven, Siegessinfonie
Ponchielli, Sinfonia in b minor
Ponchielli, Sinfonia in f minor
Ponchielli, Elegia on the Death of Garibaldi
Ponchielli, Marcia funebre for Manzoni
Ponchielli, Variations on The Carnival of Venice
Ponchielli, Concerto for Trumpet and Band
and works for large band by Haydn, Kling, Krommer, Maschek, Mejo, Meyerbeer,
Ochs, Spontini, Wieprecht, etc. They also carry my own saxophone concerto,
Civil War Reflections, and my five symphonies.
Works
previously carried by WINDS are lodged in the Bundesakademie for Musik in
Trossingen, and are available via Ruh, who has an arrangement with Trossingen to
go find the work and copy it.
TOP
CONDUCTING
COURSES IN
To access the website, browse on the University or the link.
JUNE 16 – 20 DUQUESNE UNIVERSITY
Instructors Robert C. Cameron & H Robert Reynolds
JUNE 8 – 12 MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
Kevin Sedatole and Mallory Thompson
NEW
JUNE 16 – 20 CBDNA &
Alan McMurray, Tom Lee, John Mackey and Jim Cochran
To apply, you may download the application form from http://bands.colorado.edu and return it with the required deposit to:
NEW
JUNE 16 – 20
Rodney
Winther with the 234th Army Band
Details from www.oregonconductorssymposium.com.
JUNE 16 - 21 UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN
Kevin Sedatole, Richard Floyd, Robert Carnochan and Jerry
.NEW
JUNE 23 – 25
Stephen
Pratt and Richard Blatti
Website address for application form and more information:
http://www.music.indiana.edu/special_programs/conducting/
JUNE 29 – JULY 3 ITHACA COLLEGE
Richard
Floyd and Steve Peterson
June 29 - July 1 SUNY FREDONIA
Paula
Holcomb and Gary Hill
July 13 – 18 UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-KANSAS CITY
Steve Davis, Craig Kirchoff, Daniel Schmidt and Joe Parisi.
NEW
July 13 – 17
The
Art of Conducting and Pedagogy
Sarah McKoin and Rodney Winther,
Cincinnati Conservatory
For more information, please contact Debbie Holt at debbie.holt@ttu.edu.
July 21 – 26 FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY
Roby George, Michael Haithcock, and Matt Farquhar
NEW
July
22 – 25
Workshop with Rodney Winther
The application screening process will begin on March 1. At such time, you may download the brochure/application form from http://www.uc.edu/ccm/winds/summer.htm
JULY
5 – 13 THE 2008 WORLD WIND
ORCHESTRA PROJECT (WYWOP) will be held July 5th - 13th as part of the
Mid Europe festival in