Youth Concert Pieces

Hello Everyone,

Here's a post looking at the three high school pieces we're preparing for the Community Band/Youth Concert on Thursday, April 5.  These three pieces are quite complementary perhaps partly because they have some factors in common.  Two of them are written by the same composer/arranger, and two of them are based on maritime work songs, known as sea shanties.  But what do the other two have in common?

Tales of Sea and Sail
You'll remember composer Larry Neeck, who also wrote Saxes Will Rock!, which we played last semester.

This piece is a medley of several sea shanties (or chanties).  These were songs sung by ships' crews in the 1800's.  They sang while working together to load/unload, haul on ropes, and pump out bilges, etc.  Singing together helped maintain a rhythm while working.  Wikipedia explains:  "Shanty repertoire borrowed from the contemporary popular music enjoyed by sailors, including minstrel music, popular marches, and land-based folk songs, which were adapted to suit musical forms matching the various labor tasks required to operate a sailing ship. Such tasks, which usually required a coordinated group effort in either a pulling or pushing action, included weighing anchor and setting sail."  Seems like a fitting metaphor for the group effort of the Youth Concert!


Tales of Sea and Sail contains excerpts from the following sea shanties:  "A Roving", "Blow The Man Down", "Rio Grande", "Shenandoah", "Drunken Sailor", and "Santy Anna."


I couldn't find any examples of this piece on YouTube.  Here is a partial version (up to bar 157), from the publisher's webpage.

Ravensgate
Here's a link to the bio of composer Carl Strommen.  This is a link to the professional version of Ravensgate, on the publishers webpage.

And here are some versions by school bands:





Ahhhhhh.  Smell that sea air!!!

Under an Irish Sky
This medley, arranged by Larry Neeck, contains two Irish traditional folk tunes:  Slane (also the name of a village in County Meath, Ireland which is the site of a large annual rock festival) and Brian Boru's March.

Here's the publisher's partial version of the piece (up to bar 97).

And here's a version by a middle school band.

West Side Story Payment is due this week

A quick and gentle reminder for those who have committed to the field trip to see West Side Story and dine at the Mandarin in Toronto.  Final payment  of $60 is due on Tuesday March 20.  Please make out cheques to Orangeville District Secondary School.

Some tickets may still be available, if you haven't already signed up.  Talk to Mr McIlwain if you'd like to attend.

image by djwudi, from Flickr

Wicked

image by WxMom, from Flickr

Once upon a time, there was a man named L. Frank Baum.  He was an American journalist, actor, salesman and chicken fancier, but most significantly for us, he was an author of children's stories.  His best known work is the series of novels set in the land of Oz, beginning with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, published in 1900.

image from LibraryThing

This book has had a profound effect on popular culture, spawning sequels, plays and films, influencing fashion, language and the American psyche.  Am I over-reaching to state that we all have experience of some aspect of Baum's creation?

image from LibraryThing

The writer Gregory Maguire was also inspired by the world that Baum created, and by the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, starring Judy Garland.  Maguire has written four novels set in Oz.  These stories provide an alternate viewpoint of the incidents described in Baum's books, focussing on the witches.

The Broadway musical, Wicked, was based on the first of Maguire's novels, Wicked:  the Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West.  Music and lyrics are by Stephen Schwartz (who also wrote the lyrics for the movies Pochahontas, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and both music and lyrics for The Prince of Egypt).  The musical tells the life story of the Wicked Witch of the West, whose name, Elphaba, is an amalgam of the initials of L. Frank Baum.

The Wikipedia entry for Wicked (musical), contains some interesting factoids.  For example, as an homage to Harold Arlen, the composer of the movie The Wizard of Oz, Schwartz used the first seven notes of "Over the Rainbow" as part of a recurring theme throughout the score, including in the song "Defying Gravity".  As well, you may already know that two songs from Wicked have been covered on the tv show Glee:  "Defying Gravity" and "For Good."

And now, let's turn to the arrangement of Wicked songs that we're playing.  According to his entry in Wikipedia, the arranger, Michael Sweeney, is a full time employee of music publisher Hal Leonard, where he is Director of Band Publications.  Like many of the composers and arrangers whose works we are playing, Sweeney is a former public school music teacher.  He's composed/arranged over 500 publications (including one called "When Drummers Take Over the World", a prospect both delightful and frightening to contemplate*).

Here's a link to the Music from Wicked audio file on the publisher's webpage, played by professional musicians.

Here's a version by a middle school band.

*Edited to clarify that I make this joke as a member of the support group Parents of Percussionists, and also to add in this link to a performance of the awesome "When Drummers Take Over the World."

Reference
Murphy, B. (2000). L. Frank Baum. Dictionary Of World Biography: The 19th Century, 1-3.