SKU: AP.45834S

UPC: 038081526461. English.

The keyboard music of English composer William Byrd (1543--1623) has long been regarded as some of the most representative works produced during the late Renaissance period. The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, the quintessential source of music for this idiom of the time, is also the source of the three Byrd titles included in this suite: The Bells, John, and Sellinger's Round.

The arrangements by Douglas E. Wagner are richly scored to flatter the sound of ensembles of any size. Care has been taken to eliminate technical obstacles for younger players, with musically interesting individual parts a strong consideration. (4:25).

SKU: AP.48084S

UPC: 038081550909. English.

Full of dark energy and mystery, with contemporary harmonies and moving melodic lines, Shadowlands by Gary Fagan will provide the means for directors to teach contrasting styles, dynamics, and varied articulations to young players in an easy and fun-to-play format. This lively piece, in A natural minor, will provide younger players with excellent opportunities for achieving rhythmic independence while also providing them with sections that are rhythmically similar. The slower lyrical opening section gives way to a contrasting tempo and style that will appeal to players and audiences alike. (2:15) This title available in MakeMusic Cloud.

SKU: CF.PO192S

ISBN 9781491157367. UPC: 680160915927.

Program note: Christmas Fugue, like the charming English folk tune on which it is based, is full of the spirit and fun that is Christmas. After a slow shimmering introduction which imparts an impression of Christmas morning, the fugue subject is abruptly introduced. The fugue subject: We Wish You a Merry Christmas. The work develops through a series of playful musical episodes which afford satisfying opportunities for the various sections of the orchestra. The fugue culminates in a combination of motifs which find the brass heralding the unmistakable arrival of Christmas. The Composer: Dr. Robert Bennett Brown has devoted much of his professional teaching career to musical compositions and arrangements for young orchestral enthusiasts. Christmas Fugue, like other of Dr. Drown's published works, was written in and for the actual teaching situation. At the present time, Robert Bennett Brown is District Supervisor of Music for the Levittown, N.Y. Public Schools. Previously, for some nineteen years, he taught in Bronxville, N.Y. where, as Chairman of Music, he brought about an extremely high level of school orchestral achievement. he was educated at New York University and Teachers College, Columbia University. He has served as a field supervisor of student teaching for New York University and as a general music consultant. For the past two years he has been a member of the New York State Music Regents Committee. To the Conductor: You will find this work to be the conductor's dream. Parts are easy but impressive sounding. The total effect will give your orchestra that typical classical sound so satisfying to performer and listener alike. Full or exact instrumentation is not a must; cross-cues will carry critical areas where a specified instrument may be lacking. Piano, tuba, and saxophone parts are written to accommodate those players where they exist. These parts are not essential to the instrumentation. Though Christmas Fugue is well suited to the interests of high school orchestra pursuits, its grade of difficulty is easily handled by any junior high school group of average ability.  .
Program note:Christmas Fugue, like the charming English folk tune on which it is based, is full of the spirit and fun that is Christmas. After a slow shimmering introduction which imparts an impression of Christmas morning, the fugue subject is abruptly introduced. The fugue subject: We Wish You a Merry Christmas. The work develops through a series of playful musical episodes which afford satisfying opportunities for the various sections of the orchestra. The fugue culminates in a combination of motifs which find the brass heralding the unmistakable arrival of Christmas.The Composer:Dr. Robert Bennett Brown has devoted much of his professional teaching career to musical compositions and arrangements for young orchestral enthusiasts. Christmas Fugue, like other of Dr. Drown's published works, was written in and for the actual teaching situation.At the present time, Robert Bennett Brown is District Supervisor of Music for the Levittown, N.Y. Public Schools. Previously, for some nineteen years, he taught in Bronxville, N.Y. where, as Chairman of Music, he brought about an extremely high level of school orchestral achievement. he was educated at New York University and Teachers College, Columbia University. He has served as a field supervisor of student teaching for New York University and as a general music consultant. For the past two years he has been a member of the New York State Music Regents Committee.To the Conductor:You will find this work to be the conductor's dream. Parts are easy but impressive sounding. The total effect will give your orchestra that typical classical sound so satisfying to performer and listener alike. Full or exact instrumentation is not a must; cross-cues will carry critical areas where a specified instrument may be lacking. Piano, tuba, and saxophone parts are written to accommodate those players where they exist. These parts are not essential to the instrumentation. Though Christmas Fugue is well suited to the interests of high school orchestra pursuits, its grade of difficulty is easily handled by any junior high school group of average ability. .

SKU: AP.50777S

ISBN 9781470669355. UPC: 038081588179. English.

This melody is instantly recognizable, and your students will love playing it. From the classic films Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Wonka. This arrangement, by Chris M. Bernotas, is ideally suited for your young orchestra. There are chromatic notes, simple shifts, and engaging parts for all. A fun way to introduce your students to the world of Wonka! (1:25).

SKU: AP.48038S

UPC: 038081554648. English.

Armor of the Mystic by Rob Grice is an ominous piece for younger orchestras that offers the opportunity to perform a mature-sounding composition without parts that are too technically demanding. With dissonant harmonies and pulsating rhythms, this powerful concert work is sure to stimulate the imaginations of young musicians as well as capture the attention of your audience. This work is great for festival performances and will program well on your next concert! This title is available in MakeMusic Cloud. (2:35).

SKU: HL.49018099

ISBN 9790001158428. UPC: 884088567347. 8.25x11.75x0.457 inches. Latin - German.

On letting go(Concerning the selection of the texts) In the selection of the texts, I have allowed myself to be motivated and inspired by the concept of 'letting go'. This appears to me to be one of the essential aspects of dying, but also of life itself. We humans cling far too strongly to successful achievements, whether they have to do with material or ideal values, or relationships of all kinds. We cannot and do not want to let go, almost as if our life depended on it. As we will have to practise the art of letting go at the latest during our hour of death, perhaps we could already make a start on this while we are still alive. Tagore describes this farewell with very simple but strikingly vivid imagery: 'I will return the key of my door'. I have set this text for tenor solo. Here I imagine, and have correspondingly noted in a certain passage of the score, that the protagonist finds himself as though 'in an ocean' of voices in which he is however not drowning, but immersing himself in complete relaxation. The phenomenon of letting go is described even more simply and tersely in Psalm 90, verse 12: 'So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom'. This cannot be expressed more plainly.I have begun the requiem with a solo boy's voice singing the beginning of this psalm on a single note, the note A. This in effect says it all. The work comes full circle at the culmination with a repeat of the psalm which subsequently leads into a resplendent 'lux aeterna'. The intermediate texts of the Requiem which highlight the phenomenon of letting go in the widest spectrum of colours originate on the one hand from the Latin liturgy of the Messa da Requiem (In Paradisum, Libera me, Requiem aeternam, Mors stupebit) and on the other hand from poems by Joseph von Eichendorff, Hermann Hesse, Rabindranath Tagore and Rainer Maria Rilke.All texts have a distinctive positive element in common and view death as being an organic process within the great system of the universe, for example when Hermann Hesse writes: 'Entreiss dich, Seele, nun der Zeit, entreiss dich deinen Sorgen und mache dich zum Flug bereit in den ersehnten Morgen' ['Tear yourself way , o soul, from time, tear yourself away from your sorrows and prepare yourself to fly away into the long-awaited morning'] and later: 'Und die Seele unbewacht will in freien Flugen schweben, um im Zauberkreis der Nacht tief und tausendfach zu leben' ['And the unfettered soul strives to soar in free flight to live in the magic sphere of the night, deep and thousandfold']. Or Joseph von Eichendorff whose text evokes a distant song in his lines: 'Und meine Seele spannte weit ihre Flugel aus. Flog durch die stillen Lande, als floge sie nach Haus' ['And my soul spread its wings wide. Flew through the still country as if homeward bound.']Here a strong romantically tinged occidental resonance can be detected which is however also accompanied by a universal spirit going far beyond all cultures and religions. In the beginning was the sound Long before any sort of word or meaningful phrase was uttered by vocal chords, sounds, vibrations and tones already existed. This brings us back to the music. Both during my years of study and at subsequent periods, I had been an active participant in the world of contemporary music, both as percussionist and also as conductor and composer. My early scores had a somewhat adventurous appearance, filled with an abundance of small black dots: no rhythm could be too complicated, no register too extreme and no harmony too dissonant. I devoted myself intensely to the handling of different parameters which in serial music coexist in total equality: I also studied aleatory principles and so-called minimal music.I subsequently emigrated and took up residence in Spain from where I embarked on numerous travels over the years to India, Africa and South America. I spent repeated periods during this time as a resident in non-European countries. This meant that the currents of contemporary music swept past me vaguely and at a great distance. What I instead absorbed during this period were other completely new cultures in which I attempted to immerse myself as intensively as possible.I learned foreign languages and came into contact with musicians of all classes and styles who had a different cultural heritage than my own: I was intoxicated with the diversity of artistic potential.Nevertheless, the further I distanced myself from my own Western musical heritage, the more this returned insistently in my consciousness.The scene can be imagined of sitting somewhere in the middle of the Brazilian jungle surrounded by the wailing of Indians and out of the blue being provided with the opportunity to hear Beethoven's late string quartets: this can be a heart-wrenching experience, akin to an identity crisis. This type of experience can also be described as cathartic. Whatever the circumstances, my 'renewed' occupation with the 'old' country would not permit me to return to the point at which I as an audacious young student had maltreated the musical parameters of so-called contemporary music. A completely different approach would be necessary: an extremely careful approach, inching my way gradually back into the Western world: an approach which would welcome tradition back into the fold, attempt to unfurl the petals and gently infuse this tradition with a breath of contemporary life.Although I am aware that I will not unleash a revolution or scandal with this approach, I am nevertheless confident as, with the musical vocabulary of this Requiem, I am travelling in an orbit in which no ballast or complex structures will be transported or intimated: on the contrary, I have attempted to form the message of the texts in music with the naivety of a 'homecomer'. Harald WeissColonia de San PedroMarch 2009.

SKU: HL.35024760

UPC: 888680046606. 8.5x11 inches.

Ken Baird has created music that is exciting and enjoyable, music that has movement, dynamic contrast, and stylistic interest, and music that is interesting for both young performers and young audiences alike. Each of the 3 sets contains four individual pieces. Pricing will make these sets a bargain for directors of young orchestras. Optional Violin 3 parts are available to reinforce or substitute for viola. A piano part, which is not required for performance, is included to be helpful to beginning orchestras.

Set 2 includes:

• The Great Wall

• Fiesta

• Celtic Roots

• Heroic Adventure

SKU: AP.49061S

ISBN 9781470645816. UPC: 038081565217. English.

Hanerot Halalu, arranged by Paul Riggio, is a Hanukkah selection for a younger string orchestra. The rich harmonies will make every orchestra sound full and mature. Each section is given a chance to shine as it employs independence of parts in both pitch and rhythm. Infinitely adaptable to ensembles of almost any size, directors will love programming this work as it is a tuneful and touching representation of the holiday season. Set in a traditional folk-music style, this beautiful arrangement will be a wonderful selection for a well-rounded holiday performance. (2:30).

SKU: AP.48082S

UPC: 038081556505. English.

Dolce by Chris M. Bernotas will make your young string orchestra sound full and mature. Smooth flowing melodies and rich harmonies are presented to all sections of the orchestra. Featuring a variety of dynamics, this piece will provide a wonderful opportunity to teach phrasing to your students. Dolce, which means sweet, is the perfect selection for any concert setting. (2:00) This title available in MakeMusic Cloud.

SKU: AP.49929

ISBN 9781470662240. UPC: 038081579443. English.

The Harvest Home, arranged by Jim Palmer, is a traditional hornpipe that is a perfect teaching piece for your young orchestra. All sections get a chance to play the melody, and the students will learn about string crossings, pizzicato, dynamics, and musical phrasing. This fun piece will be a great opener or closer to any concert or festival performance! (2:00) Correlates to Sound Innovations, Book 1, Level 4.

SKU: AP.20586S

UPC: 038081196602. English.

As the title implies, Wait Your Turn! is full of rhythmic challenges and surprises. Interlocking accompaniments and cadences are designed to help young musicians listen to themselves and each other simultaneously. Everyone gets a turn at the melodies, which contain counting and bowing challenges of their own. Drumset and piano accompaniment parts are included for additional support. Students and audiences will enjoy this piece for its light and breezy style, while orchestra teachers will value the essential musical skills that it encourages. This title is available in MakeMusic Cloud.