SKU: HL.284555
UPC: 888680912901. 9x12 inches.
Composers note:I never imagined I would write a string quartet. Then I heard the JACK Quartet, and I understood how I might be able to make the medium my own. The result was The Wind in High Places - a twenty-minute work composed entirely on natural harmonics and open strings.Over the next few years, two more quartets followed. The second quartet, untouched, is a further exploration of the aeolian sound world of the first. Then, in Canticles of the Sky, the musicians finally touch the fingerboards of their instruments.And now comes Everything That Rises.This fourth quartet is more expansive, both in time and in space. It grows out of Sila: The Breath of the World - a performance-length choral/orchestral work composed on a rising series of sixteen harmonic clouds.Everything That Rises traverses this same territory, but in a much more melodic way.Each musician is a soloist, playing throughout. They surround the audience. Time floats.Over the course of an hour, the lines spin out - always rising - in acoustically perfect intervals that grow progressively smaller as they spiral upward... until the music dissolves into the soft noise of the bows, sighing.
SKU: SU.94010762
Dedicated to Titus Underwood, Principal Oboe, Nashville Symphony OrchestraOboe Duration: 5' Composed: 2020 Published by: Subito Music Publishing PROGRAM NOTE: The year 2020 has definitely been a very challenging year with many upheavals. During this time of the COVID-19 health crisis, wearing masks, and high racial tensions, I decided to compose four short solo woodwind works for flute, oboe, clarinet, and bassoon, which represent the core woodwind section in an orchestra. I was inspired to compose these short pieces after I first heard Igor Stravinsky's three short pieces for clarinet, which totals a little more than four minutes in duration. I thought that it would be nice to highlight and honor my African-American male colleagues in the orchestral music world. I wanted to celebrate the fact that they are the principal player in the section of their respective orchestras. The short pieces are as follows: Principal Brother No. 1 for flute solo for Demarre McGill, Principal Flute of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Principal Brother No. 2 for oboe solo for Titus Underwood, Principal Oboe of the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, Principal Brother No. 3 for clarinet solo for Anthony McGill, Principal Clarinet of the New York Philharmonic, and Principal Brother No. 4 for bassoon solo for Bryan Young, Principal Bassoon of the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra. These works all begin with notes that are representative of their name; D for Demarre, B for Titus (ti in solfège starting on C), A for Anthony, and Bb for Bryan. There is also a rhythmic figure in the opening measures of each piece, which represent the utterance of their names. All four of these works are rhapsodic in nature with elements of improvisation. - James Lee III.
SKU: HL.48025073
ISBN 9783793143123. UPC: 196288059714. 9.0x12.0x0.079 inches.
Composer's note: In 2000 I wrote a piece called Sand Waltz for the Canberra Wind Players. In the middle of it I wrote a four-chord progression. WhenI started working on the ballet Wild Swans (2003) I came back to this material and it became something that I grew to rather like. Eventually it became the basis for the overture to the whole ballet. It had somewhat dreamy quality but also a sense of anticipationand mystery. Later, when writing this as the first movement of the Concert Suite Wild Swans I gave it a title Green Leaf as it refected the way the princess Eliza was making a hole in a green leaf to look through it, imagining far-away exotic lands and birds..
SKU: HL.49015170
ISBN 9783795716868. German. Wilfried Blecher.
Die bekanntesten Weihnachtslieder in leichten Satzen fur Unterricht und Hausmusik, mit Illustrationen von Wilfried Blecher. In der Kombination mit parallel erschienenen Heften ergeben sich vielfaltige Besetzungs- und Auffuhrungsmoglichkeiten. Zusatzliche Harmonie-Symbole ermoglichen auch eine Begleitung mit Gitarre (ad lib.). Folgende Besetzungsmoglichkeiten sind moglich: 1. Stimme (Melodie): Querflote I, Sopranblockflote I, Violine I, Viola I, Violoncello I, Gesang - 2. Stimme: Querflote II, Sopranblockflote II, Violine II, Viola II, Violoncello II - dazu: Klavier, Gitarre ad lib.
SKU: PR.312419280
ISBN 9781491137925. UPC: 680160692613.
Terra Nostra focuses on the relationship between our planet and mankind, how this relationship has shifted over time, and how we can re-establish a harmonious balance. The oratorio is divided into three parts:Part I: Creation of the World celebrates the birth and beauty of our planet. The oratorio begins with creation myths from India, North America, and Egypt that are integrated into the opening lines of Genesis from the Old Testament. The music surges forth from these creation stories into “God’s World” by Edna St. Vincent Millay, which describes the world in exuberant and vivid detail. Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “On thine own child” praises Mother Earth for her role bringing forth all life, while Walt Whitman sings a love song to the planet in “Smile O voluptuous cool-breathed earth!” Part I ends with “A Blade of Grass” in which Whitman muses how our planet has been spinning in the heavens for a very long time.Part II: The Rise of Humanity examines the achievements of mankind, particularly since the dawn of the Industrial Age. Lord Alfred Tennyson’s “Locksley Hall” sets an auspicious tone that mankind is on the verge of great discoveries. This is followed in short order by Charles Mackay’s “Railways 1846,” William Ernest Henley’s “A Song of Speed,” and John Gillespie Magee, Jr.’s “High Flight,” each of which celebrates a new milestone in technological achievement. In “Binsey Poplars,” Gerard Manley Hopkins takes note of the effect that these advances are having on the planet, with trees being brought down and landscapes forever changed. Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “A Dirge” concludes Part II with a warning that the planet is beginning to sound a grave alarm.Part III: Searching for Balance questions how we can create more awareness for our planet’s plight, re-establish a deeper connection to it, and find a balance for living within our planet’s resources. Three texts continue the earth’s plea that ended the previous section: Lord Byron’s “Darkness” speaks of a natural disaster (a volcano) that has blotted out the sun from humanity and the panic that ensues; contemporary poet Esther Iverem’s “Earth Screaming” gives voice to the modern issues of our changing climate; and William Wordsworth’s “The World Is Too Much With Us” warns us that we are almost out of time to change our course. Contemporary/agrarian poet Wendell Berry’s “The Want of Peace” speaks to us at the climax of the oratorio, reminding us that we can find harmony with the planet if we choose to live more simply, and to recall that we ourselves came from the earth. Two Walt Whitman texts (“A Child said, What is the grass?” and “There was a child went forth every day”) echo Berry’s thoughts, reminding us that we are of the earth, as is everything that we see on our planet. The oratorio concludes with a reprise of Whitman’s “A Blade of Grass” from Part I, this time interspersed with an additional Whitman text that sublimely states, “I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love…”My hope in writing this oratorio is to invite audience members to consider how we interact with our planet, and what we can each personally do to keep the planet going for future generations. We are the only stewards Earth has; what can we each do to leave her in better shape than we found her?
