Timber Ridge Overture

Greetings, Radical Musicians!

This week, we feature another useful musical tool, gathered in a familiar formation.


The composer of the stirring Timber Ridge Overture is Gary Fagan. According to his bio, he was a music teacher and band instructor in middle and high schools for more than 35 years. He won several awards for his teaching. He is a percussionist, and composer with over 50 pieces published.

Here is a performance of Timber Ridge Overture by a high school band, with a full complement of percussionists.



Email readers, you can find the video here, or click through to the blog to see this post in its full glory.

Commemoration

Commemoration by Robert W. Smith was published in 1993.

Here's a link to the audio file, played by professional musicians:  http://listeninglab.stantons.com/title/commemoration/142729/?s=1

And here's a school band performing the piece.


 This is a link to the video for email readers: http://youtu.be/-3PMlIdr8Mw

The Incredibles

Is it just me, or is this piece hard to work on at home? It's like a paragraph that's all punctuation and no words.

Google to the rescue! There's not a lot out there, but we found a couple of examples.

Here's a link to the publisher's audio file, played by professional musicians.

Here's a high school band performing The Incredibles.


This is a link to the video, if you're reading this in your email.

Phew, now it makes more sense!

Celebration and Song

If you were trying to explain the meaning of Commencement to an alien from another planet, you could do a pretty good job of it just by showing him or her the titles of the pieces we're working on this month. From Pomp and Circumstance, Tribute and Triumph, Commemoration, Celebration and Song, and The Incredibles, we get the impression of a formal ritual to honour effort and accomplishment. (Of course, you'd want to explain to the alien that along with celebratory music, the best formal rituals always involve delicious food.)

Over the next few posts, we'll look at some of these rousing pieces we're working on for Commencement. Many thanks to Heather in the flute section for scouting out some videos!

Celebration and Song was composed by Robert Sheldon. A former public school music teacher and university music instructor, he is Concert Band Editor for Alfred Music Publishing. Celebration and Song was commissioned for the Hillsdale High School Wind Ensemble in Ohio.

Here's a high school band performing the piece.



Here's the link to the video, for email readers.

After hearing the version of Celebration and Song in this next video, I did some research on the group of performers. They have a webpage, which is written in Slovenian. Google Translate seemed to tell me that they are a long-standing community band, made up of young people and older people. I think they're pretty impressive (if you like this one, check out their version of Pirates of the Caribbean). What do you think?

Words to the Wise

Hello out there!
Here are your notes from last week's practice:

1. Remember to bring a pencil to rehearsals. Keeping one in your instrument case is a sure fire way to success. An eraser is also handy.
2. Journalling students keep journalling.
3. Practice next week is Thursday October 11 at usual time (staff meeting on Tuesday due to holiday Monday).
4. Commencement is in one month so get your chops ready for the processional. Remember last year we had to play a long time while the graduates filed in.
5. Stay tuned for Band-a-thon details. 

To think that so much success could come from such a small tool!