SKU: PR.11640342S

UPC: 680160687749.

The Body Electric draws its inspiration from great American poet, Walt Whitman's work I Sing the Body Electric. Two years earlier, while writing a setting of Whitman's Crossing Brooklyn Ferry for baritone and chamber orchestra, I became enamored with many of the poems from his collection, The Leaves of Grass. I had not revisited Whitman's poetry since high school and that distance provided a fresh look at Whitman's poetry. In the spring of 2009, I came back to this collection and decided to write another work inspired by Whitman's poetry, this time for chamber orchestra alone. Writing a work that attempted to capture the mood of this epic poem seemed impossible. Because of the inherent abstract nature of text-less music, writing a work that was a musical blow-by-blow of the poem seemed equally impossible. For me, the solution was to take three fragments of the poem and focus on conveying their particular moods. In the score, I have included the following lines at the beginning of each section: the Body electric, A divine nimbus exhales, and the Body at auction. the Body Electric was written for the 2009 Wellesley College Composers Conference and was premiered on the final concert of the conference with Jim Baker conducting. Clint Needham.
the Body Electric draws its inspiration from great American poet, Walt Whitman’s work I Sing theBody Electric. Two years earlier, while writing a setting of Whitman’s Crossing Brooklyn Ferry forbaritone and chamber orchestra, I became enamored with many of the poems from his collection,The Leaves of Grass. I had not revisited Whitman’s poetry since high school and that distanceprovided a fresh look at Whitman’s poetry. In the spring of 2009, I came back to this collectionand decided to write another work inspired by Whitman’s poetry, this time for chamber orchestraalone.Writing a work that attempted to capture the mood of this epic poem seemed impossible. Becauseof the inherent abstract nature of text-less music, writing a work that was a musical blow-by-blowof the poem seemed equally impossible. For me, the solution was to take three fragments of thepoem and focus on conveying their particular moods. In the score, I have included the followinglines at the beginning of each section: the Body electric, A divine nimbus exhales, and the Bodyat auction.the Body Electric was written for the 2009 Wellesley College Composers Conference and waspremiered on the final concert of the conference with Jim Baker conducting.Clint Needham.

SKU: PR.47600137L

UPC: 680160637157. 11x17 inches.

This piece, dedicated to the memory of a heroic feat, does not desire to be classed as a Symphonic Poem in the generally accepted sense of this term. It does not attempt to picture, or to strictly follow, the various mechanical and realistic phases of this heroic adventure although, on the other hand, it does not entirely avoid allusion to such realistic phenomena as are characteristic of and inseperable from the nature of this adventure and the technical means of its realization. The composer's main object, however, was to try to express in sound the emotional phases of an adventure that might be called a prototype of modern romance; to touch upon its human aspect and its ethical meaning, not only in the relation to the individual, but to humanity in general. To the individual, the venturing Hero, refer the opening phrases; the sinister aspect of a bold inspiration at its first manifestation. To his human environments, his character and conquering spirit, refer certain lyrical as well as martial and ehical themes. According to the nature of the venture, the clash of motoric forces and that of an indomitable spirit with the threatening elements presented themselves for musical consideration as well as the plausible uncertainty of the outcome, the increasing conficence and the final victory, and triumphant victory itself. And as emotion in its purest and most intense form reverts to the primitive, the composer thought it not amiss to make fragmentary use of the anthems of two nations, thus symbolizing the appeal from soil to soil; an appeal that found its joyous echo in all humanity. And in the midst of the turbulent rejoicing stands the lone figure of the Hero whose daring had materialized the dream of aeons.

SKU: PR.11641139S

UPC: 680160682119.

Barcarolles for a Sinking City was inspired by the city of Venice, a place that has long held the fascination of artists, writers and composers, and which I have been lucky enough to visit on several occasions. Sadly it seems that future generations may not be so lucky: in addition to the city's slow sinking and recently discovered tilting, studies predict that if global warming and the resultant rise of ocean levels is unabated, the entire city (as well as many other coastal cities around the globe) will be under water by 2100.   I. Funeral Gondola The late, cryptic piano works of Franz Liszt made a profound impression on me as a young composer, among them two works he entitled La Lugubre Gondola (usually translated as The Funeral Gondola ) which were said to be a premonition of Wagner's death in Venice, his coffin transported through the canals in a black gondola. These late pieces of Liszt acquired even greater significance to me after I spent two summers in Bayreuth under the patronage of Friedelind Wagner, the granddaughter of Wagner and great-granddaughter of Liszt. This movement is a meditation on Wagner, Liszt, Venice and its own evanescence. II. Barcarolle/Quodlibet The Quodlibet (Latin for what pleases) is a musical form dating back to the 15th century where many disparate melodies are juxtaposed. Popular in the Renaissance, sacred and secular melodies were combined, often to comical effect due to the resultant incongruity of the words. The form was considered the ultimate test of a composer's mastery of counterpoint. The most famous Quodlibet is without doubt the final Variation of Bach's Goldberg Variations. As a form the Quodlibet is less common in more recent music, although examples can be found in the works of Kurt Weill and David Del Tredici.   My own Barcarolle/Quodlibet was inspired by the (perhaps apocryphal) story of the funeral where musicians were asked to play a Bach Choral, but due to miscommunication played instead the Bacarolle from The Tales of Hoffmann. Here, the Bach Choral Allen Menschen mussen sterben (All Men Must Die) is heard in the strings pizzicato, with a tempo indication In slow motion. The alto line of the Bach suggests a phrase from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony (Alle Menchen werden Bruder) heard in the muted trombone. Before long, the famous tune from Offenbach's opera is heard, followed by quotations from iconic Barcarolles by Chopin, Mendelssohn and Faure, as well as two Venetian popular songs and more Beethoven.   III. Barcarola/Ostinato/Carillon An ostinato is a repeated musical figure, and carillon is Italian for music box. This movement references the obsolete genre of salon pieces that imitated music boxes: such works by composers like Liadov and Gretchaninov used to be a mainstay of pianists' encore repertoire. This movement is however much darker in conception than those pleasant trifles. Utilizing the full battery of percussion, the carefully notated temporal slowing of the ostinato becomes overwhelmed by a poignant chorale melody before this box is snapped shut.   IV. Barcarolle Oubliee (Forgotten Barcarolle) Marked limpido (still) the final movement begins with the sound of rain produced by a percussion instrument called (appropriately) a rain stick. Halting phrases in the harp coalesce into the accompaniment for a plangent melody heard in the clarinet. The central Adagio of this movement leads to a shattering climax, before the opening phrases return and dissipate into nothingness.

SKU: PR.16500092L

UPC: 680160039531. 11 x 17 inches.

Zion is the third and final installment of a series of works for Wind Ensemble inspired by national parks in the western United States, collectively called Three Places in the West. As in the other two works (The Yellowstone Fires and Arches), it is my intention to convey more an impression of the feelings I've had in Zion National Park in Utah than an attempt at pictorial description. Zion is a place with unrivalled natural grandeur, being a sort of huge box canyon in which the traveler is constantly overwhelmed by towering rock walls on every side of him -- but it is also a place with a human history, having been inhabited by several tribes of native Americans before the arrival of the Mormon settlers in the mid-19th century. By the time the Mormons reached Utah, they had been driven all the way from New York State through Ohio and, with tragic losses, through Missouri. They saw Utah in general as a place nobody wanted, but they were nonetheless determined to keep it to themselves. Although Zion Canyon was never a Mormon Stronghold, the people who reached it and claimed it (and gave it its present name) had been through extreme trials. It is the religious fervor of these persecuted people that I was able to draw upon in creating Zion as a piece of music. There are two quoted hymns in the work: Zion's Walls (which Aaron Copland adapted to his own purposes in both is Old American Songs and the opera The Tender Land) and Zion's Security, which I found in the same volume in which Copland found Zion's Walls -- that inexhaustible storehouse of 19th-century hymnody called The Sacred Harp. My work opens with a three-verse setting of Zion's Security, a stern tune in F-sharp minor which is full of resolve. (The words of this hymn are resolute and strong, rallying the faithful to be firm, and describing the city of our God they hope to establish). This melody alternates with a fanfare tune, whose origins will be revealed in later music, until the second half of the piece begins: a driving rhythmic ostinato based on a 3/4-4/4 alternating meter scheme. This pauses at its height to restate Zion's Security one more time, in a rather obscure setting surrounded by freely shifting patterns in the flutes, clarinets, and percussion -- until the sun warms the ground sufficiently for the second hymn to appear. Zion's Walls is set in 7/8, unlike Copland's 9/8-6/8 meters (the original is quite strange, and doesn't really fit any constant meter), and is introduced by a warm horn solo. The two hymns vie for attention from here to the end of the piece, with the glowingly optimistic Zion's Walls finally achieving prominence. The work ends with a sense of triumph and unbreakable spirit. Zion was commissioned in 1994 by the wind ensembles of the University of Texas at Arlington, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Oklahoma. It is dedicated to the memory of Aaron Copland.

SKU: PR.416414230

ISBN 9781598066630. UPC: 680160602087. 9x12 inches.

Colonnade is James Matheson’s intriguing response to the Albany Symphony’s commission to create a work inspired by the NY State Board of Education Building, designed by the renowned architect Rafael Guastavino. Matheson explains that “A colonnade acts as a metaphor for the tension between knowledge and perception. The columns are the same height and equidistant from each other; while the mind understands this fully, there exists no place from which one can perceive this – the columns always appear to be of uneven height and spacing. If one then adds motion to perspective, identical columns acquire elasticity, and begin to change kaleidoscopically – they shrink, grow, become closer, and then further apart.” This structural paradox is given musical life in the outer sections of Colonnade, while the long, arching middle section is inspired by the vaulted ceiling of one of the building’s largest rooms, enhancing the structure’s spacious openness and lightness.
Colonnade is inspired by Albany’s majestic New York State Board of Education Building, and written on a commission from the Albany Symphony Orchestra. It was an intriguing task, in part because in order to accept the commission I had to agree to write a work “inspired by” a building I had not yet seen. Thisproblem was compounded by the fact that, for me, the very notion of extra-musical inspiration is a complex one, particularly with respect to literary or visual sources. I generally find ideas and abstracted notions more generative of musical ideas than specific ones (a poem, an experience, a painting). So when I went to seeand tour the building, I sought to identify fundamental formal aspects of the building which I could process into musical ideas, and would then be linked to the building through a sense of formal relationship. In theend, two characteristics of the building stood out as noteworthy and undiminished by time (compared with, for instance, the building’s rotunda, which contains a series of quaintly outdated allegorical paintings): theexterior colonnade and a beautiful interior vaulted ceiling, designed by Rafael Guastavino.For me, a colonnade acts as a metaphor for the tension between knowledge and perception. We all know, for instance, that the columns are of the same height and are equidistant from each other. Nevertheless, while the mind understands this fully, it is also the case that there exists no place – no standpoint or viewpoint – anywhere in the universe – from which one can perceive this; the columns always appear to be of uneven height and spacing. If one then adds motion to perspective – a walk along the colonnade, for instance – the fixed, even, rigidly identical columns acquire elasticity, and begin to change kaleidoscopically – they shrink, grow, become closer, and then further apart. Further, the detail of the building’s façade behind the colonnadeshifts into and out of visibility, with different portions obscured by the columns from each vantage point. These considerations underlie the outer sections of Colonnade, in which a continuously repeated, continuously varied rising figure – suggestive of a column – dominates. The iterations of this elastic, evolvingfigure are interspersed with other music – suggestive of the building’s façade. The second feature of the building that caught my attention was the vaulted ceiling, designed by Guastavino,of one of the building’s largest rooms. The ceiling enhances the spaciousness of the room, giving it an openness and lightness that is quite captivating. The middle section of Colonnade has this openness at its core, and is dominated by long, arching lines that, to me, suggest the refined beauty of this ceiling.World premiere March 8, 2003; Albany Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Alan Miller.

SKU: CF.SC92

ISBN 9781491162293. UPC: 680160921041.

Originally written for violin and piano, William Grant Still's Suite for Violin and Orchestra was inspired by significant artists of the Harlem Renaissance.  Each of the three movements depict three sculptures created in the 1930s: Richmond Barthé’s African Dancer, Sargent Johnson’s Mother and Child, and Augusta Savage’s Gamin. The suite follows traditional fast-slow-fast Classical form. The first movement, African Dancer, illustrates the unrestrained urgency of the dancing figure using varying tempi and hints of the jazz. Mother and Child, later arranged for string orchestra alone, sings a gently syncopated melody in a soothing lullaby. The final movement, like the child in the sculpture Gamin, invokes mischievous and playful motifs with blues-infused fiddle techniques.

SKU: FP.FDD02

ISBN 9790570503834.

Vernon Park, Stockport’s oldest park, was created on land donated by Lord Vernon (George John Warren). It was built by poor mill workers who called it pinch-belly park and opened on 20th September 1858. Comprising twenty-one acres, it houses a museum, a bandstand, ornamental fountains, a fernery, rockery, borders and sunken rose garden as well terraced walkways that overlook the river and weir. The piece depicts a solitary walker engrossed in his own thoughts on a winter’s day, the landscape, and the park’s Victorian past.

At the very end of the piece a reminder of the park’s Victorian origins can be detected in a quote from Elgar’s Salut d’amour of 1899, which may well have been played by a band in the bandstand. Stockport market celebrated its 750th anniversary in 2010. It dated back to September 1260 when a Royal Charter allowed Robert de Stokeport, the Mayor, to hold a weekly market within the defensive walls of the Norman Castle on the present site of Castle Yard.

The Glass Umbrella was a popular name given to the 1861 covered market built of timber, glass and iron - nine bays with open sides and a glass canopy. In 1912, one bay was removed to enable electric trams and trolley buses to turn a sharp corner.

The piece depicts a lively market day, the multiculturalism of the present day and the old cries of pick and pay without delay. The bells of St Mary’s Church are depicted by a cascading peel tuned to the ten bells of the church tower, and a fleeting reference to John Wainwright’s famous Christmas hymn Christians Awake, and the Westminster chimes striking the hour from St Mary’s, bring to piece to a conclusion. Separate parts are provided for recorder and oboe.

SKU: SP.73450

ISBN 9781585605057. UPC: 728941734500.

Teach Yourself Bass Guitar by Bob Hartz was written to enable an inspired individual to learn to play this nucleus of every ensemble. With disciplined daily practice, you will quickly grasp the use of standard and tablature notation as well as the notes in first position. Once the importance of time is understood, scales are introduced in assorted keys to develop right hand finger style technique. Teach Yourself Bass Guitar exclusively distributed by Santorella Publications includes an extremely helpful instructional CD which provides good basic exposure to the bass guitar. This Teach Yourself title is a logical step by step approach to learning and teaching yourself at your own pace. Be sure to follow this guide in sequence since later information builds upon and utilizes facts presented earlier. Learning the bass has never been easier, so take your time, have some fun and you'll be gigging before you know it! Bass Guitar Fingerboard Chart - Parts of the Electric Bass - Tuning - Holding the Bass - Basic Notation - Bar lines, Measures and Time Signatures - Notes on the First String G - Exercises - Notes on the Second String D - Exercises - Rests and Note Value Table - Metronome - Notes on the Third String A - Exercises - Notes on the Fourth String E - Sharps, Flats and Naturals - Dotted Notes - Major Scales - Key Signatures - Bringing Things Together - Blues - Rock'n Roll - Shuffle Rhythm - Playing in 3/4 Time.

SKU: HL.35028944

UPC: 884088900106. 4.75x4.75 inches. Arr. Joseph M. Martin /Brad Nix.

Uses: General, Lent, Ordination, Baccalaureate, Graduation, Youth Choir

Scripture: Proverbs 3:5-6

Inspired by a beloved Scripture passage, this powerful admonition in song provides musical beauty and spiritual depth. A sweeping theme takes this Biblical mandate and gives it artful wings while a lushly produced orchestration and StudioTrax CD provide several options for performance. Unison singing mixes with expressive four-part writing, adding depth and power. Available separately: SATB, StudioTrax CD (Accomp., SplitTrax, Perf.), Orchestration (Score & Parts for Flute 1 & 2, Oboe, Clarinet 1 & 2, Bassoon, Horn 1 & 2, Trumpet 1-3, Trombone 1 & 2, Bass Trombone/Tuba, Timpani, Percussion, Harp, Piano, Violin 1 & 2, Viola, Cello, Double Bass). Duration: ca. 3:41.

SKU: GI.G-003098

Scripture: Psalm 46, Psalm 108, Psalm 131.

This collection includes three pieces for violin and piano by Keith S. Kalemba. The first piece is a meditation inspired by Psalm 46, “Be still and know that I am God.” The music alternates between rich harmonies and silence. The scherzo based on Psalm 108, “Awake, my soul, awake, lyre and harp!” is a dance laced with lydian melodies and rich chords. The berceuse based on Psalm 131, “My whole being is at rest in you, my God” is a gentle lullaby with a large arching melody.    .