Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream incidental music to the play by Shakespeare is best known for the famous Wedding March though the work contains an array of beautiful music. The instrumental movements are frequently performed as an Orchestral suite or as stand-alone pieces.The Overture was composed when Mendelssohn was just seventeen years old written as a concert overture. Then when King Frederick William IV of Prussia commissioned the adult Mendelssohn to create incidental music for the whole of the play in 1842 Mendelssohn incorporated the Overture and its themes repeatedly throughout the work. Mendelssohn particularly loved Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’sDream having read it with his sister from childhood. His incidental music for the play ranks among the best of its genre skillfully generating the spirit of each of the characters establishing ambiences for the various scenes and complementing Shakespeare’s own drama.

John Philip Sousa was an American composer and conductor best known for his military and patriotic marches. Sousa has over 100 marches to his credit but this is his most successful and influential piece. A great challenge for your ensemble you are sure to energize and impress your audiences with this most marvelous of marches!