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HOME PAGE: SPRING 2006

REPERTOIRE

Ithaca College, 10th April 2006

A Spring Greetings from the Finger Lakes in New York State, and a homily on repertoire. A distinguished colleague emailed recently to ask about concertos for brass quintets and wind orchestra, and I suggested he looked up concertos on my website. In fact, Concertos is listed under articles, not repertoire which is confusing, and also confusing is the fact that the information about the very charming and witty (I think) Le Quatorze Juilliet (brass quintet soloists), a Concerto by François Rauber, published by WASBE member Robert Martin, played by the Orchestre d’Harmonie d’Électricité de Strassbourg is not in my concertos listing, but is included enthusiastically under Conferences WASBE 2003 with a link to my review for what it is worth in the WASBE website.

Somebody sometime is going to do us all a service by putting together, preferably on line, a wind band equivalent of Orchestral Music by David Daniels to help the search for unusual, un-commercial, even unpublished repertoire. My solution was put to WASBE about five years ago that we use the 2002 edition of Norman Smith’s Program Notes for Band as the bottom line for repertoire of the 20th century, that we add supplements, either by country or by genre to deal with bits of the repertoire that Norman did not uncover, and that we continue to issue supplements, on new repertoire perhaps every two years for the WASBE Conference, on new editions, on transcriptions and arrangements and so on.

A WORK FOR THE BBC PROMS

Meanwhile, what about new repertoire emerging at present. I was lucky enough to get to hear the US Marine Band under Leonard Slatkin in a great performance of Symphony no 3, Circus Maximus by John Corigliano. The new Strathmore Music Centre hall North of Baltimore is spectacular, and could comfortably take the sonic attack from the work. It certainly has everyone arguing as to whether the work is a patronising mélange of every band cliché, the circus band, the marching band, the virtuoso wind ensemble, jazz, or whether it is a work of genius, transforming these clichés into “high art”. It is certainly a spectacular, and I would love to hear Slatkin conduct it at the BBC Proms with the Massed Bands of Her Majesty’s Royal Marines, Royal Airforce and the Guards Bands. In the same concert there was a masterly transcription of Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto by Patterson.

USA SYNCHRONISED SWIMMING TEAM

In Kentucky at a rehearsal of his Turbine I met a student of Corigliano, the very engaging John Mackey, whose work for clarinet and percussion Damn, accompanied the bronze medal winning USA synchronised swimming team at the Athens Olympics. His virtuosic Red Line Tango won Ithaca College’s Walter Beeler Prize, and will shortly be released on CD with all of the other Beeler winners including Adam Gorb’s Metropolis. 

On his website I found a less spectacular, more charming work Sarsaparilla, and his latest work, Strange Humors, for wind and solo djembe, has just been premiered at Baylor in the ABA Conference. At the CBDNA Eastern Division Conference I heard two quiet pieces well worth exploring, Steven Bryant’s evocative the logic of all my dreams, and a quiet piece for high school bands, Lux Aurumque by Eric Whitacre.

Finally Last week I heard a terrific piece by Dave Brubeck’s son, Chris Brubeck, called Vignettes for wind quintet and jazz quartet. An enquiry to his website brought back the astonishing news that he has a wind band piece written already, Threshold of Liberty, published by Carl Fischer. Meanwhile, a jazz colleague from Northern California mentioned that he had heard a brilliant new piece by Adam Gorb with the US Army Field Band. How do we in Europe find out about this repertoire? HELP!

ELEPHANT ORCHESTRA OF THAILAND

I have on my desk ten CDs with a bold headline:

“Selecting the right music for your concert band has never been easier. Hear the best new concert band music on the market today.” 

I had an email today from a senior in my conducting class, enthusing about a Naxos release of Wind Band Classics, Mackey’s Redline Tango and Mike Mower’s brilliantly jazzy Flute Concerto, commissioned by Cody Birdwell and available on B570074, conducted by John Lynch with the University of Kansas. Hugely enjoyable he reckoned, but he asks can they be called “classics” after only a couple of years? In a way, that is splitting hairs, we should all buy it and encourage Naxos to bring out more, but we are as a profession too ready with our accolades, “Best new concert band music on the market - Band Classics – Masterpieces of Band Literature – The Core Repertoire – the Best new Great Band Core Repertoire Masterpieces” In my local library, there is a band section which has four CDs of Sousa Marches, nothing for wind ensemble, but a fair representation of the Elephant Orchestra of Thailand.

BACK TO HUNGARY

Meanwhile I have gone back to the concerts from WASBE Sweden and in particular the Symphonic Band of Kiskunfelegyhaza. I am programming Ranki’s exuberant King Pomade Suite no 2, and despite emails and letters to his son, to the conductor and the putative publisher can find no information about when it will become available. From the same concert I listened again to two ballet suites, Coriolanus which is one of Hidas’s strongest works, and the very amusing Ballet Suite for Wind Orchestra by Laszlo Dubrovay, conducted by the brilliant Laszlo Marosi. Thank goodness for Mark Morette who makes available to us everything that he can get copyright clearance for except when publishers do not allow it.

Thus WASBE members who buy CDs from Singapore will be unable to hear Michael Daugherty’s Bells for Stokowski. I have started to listen to these discs, and have enjoyed Hardy Merten’s Prayer and Solemnitas by Franco Cesarini. But how do we find out who publishes all these WASBE pieces. Apropos, HaFaBra have brought out a terrific new edition of Jules Strens’ Danse Funambulesque - there is just so much good music out there that I wish I were at the start of my wind band conducting career instead of the end, and I wish too that conductors could easily access information about good repertoire as well as bad.