SKU: PR.41541156L

UPC: 680160642953. 11 x 17 inches.

The Mythology Suite consists of three movements of my Mythology Symphony, which I arranged for large wind ensemble. The arrangements of The Lovely Sirens and Penelope Waits were commissioned by James Ripley and Carthage College for the Carthage Wind Orchestra's 2017 Japan tour. I added Pandora Undone to complete the set; Stephen Squires and the Chicago College of Performing Arts gave the premiere of the entire Suite in February 2017. Movement 1: The Lovely Sirens The Sirens were sea nymphs, usually pictured as part woman and part bird, who lived on a secluded island surrounded by rocks. Their enchanting song was irresistible to passing sailors, who were lured to their deaths as their ships were destroyed upon the rocks. The Lovely Sirens presents three ideas: the Sirens' beautiful song, an unfortunate group of sailors whose course takes them near the island, and the disaster that befalls the sailors. The sailors' peril is represented by the Morse code S.O.S. signal (three dots, three dashes, and three dots--represented musically by short and long rhythms). The S.O.S. signal grows increasingly more insistent and distressed as it becomes obvious that the sailors, smitten with the voices of the Sirens, are headed for their demise. Movement 2: Penelope Waits This quiet movement represents Queen Penelope, the faithful wife of Odysseus, as she patiently waits twenty years for her husband's return from fighting the Trojan Wars. Penelope herself is represented as an oboe. She is accompanied by the ensemble as she keeps at bay the suitors who wish to marry her and inherit her riches. Movement 3: Pandora Undone This movement is, in turns, both lighthearted and serious. The music depicts a young, naive Pandora who, while dancing around her house, spies a mysterious box. She tries to resist opening it, but her curiosity ultimately gets the best of her. When she cracks the lid open and looks inside, all evils escape into the world. Dismayed by what she has done, she looks inside the box once more. She discovers hope still in the box and releases it to temper the escaped evils and assuage mankind's new burden.
The Mythology Suite consists of three movements of my Mythology Symphony, which I arranged for large wind ensemble. The arrangements of The Lovely Sirens and Penelope Waits were commissioned by James Ripley and Carthage College for the Carthage Wind Orchestra’s 2017 Japan tour. I added Pandora Undone to complete the set; Stephen Squires and the Chicago College of Performing Arts gave the premiere of the entire Suite in February 2017.Movement 1: The Lovely SirensThe Sirens were sea nymphs, usually pictured as part woman and part bird, who lived on a secluded island surrounded by rocks. Their enchanting song was irresistible to passing sailors, who were lured to their deaths as their ships were destroyed upon the rocks. The Lovely Sirens presents three ideas: the Sirens’ beautiful song, an unfortunate group of sailors whose course takes them near the island, and the disaster that befalls the sailors. The sailors’ peril is represented by the Morse code S.O.S. signal (three dots, three dashes, and three dots—represented musically by short and long rhythms). The S.O.S. signal grows increasingly more insistent and distressed as it becomes obvious that the sailors, smitten with the voices of the Sirens, are headed for their demise.Movement 2: Penelope WaitsThis quiet movement represents Queen Penelope, the faithful wife of Odysseus, as she patiently waits twenty years for her husband's return from fighting the Trojan Wars. Penelope herself is represented as an oboe. She is accompanied by the ensemble as she keeps at bay the suitors who wish to marry her and inherit her riches.Movement 3: Pandora UndoneThis movement is, in turns, both lighthearted and serious. The music depicts a young, naïve Pandora who, while dancing around her house, spies a mysterious box. She tries to resist opening it, but her curiosity ultimately gets the best of her. When she cracks the lid open and looks inside, all evils escape into the world. Dismayed by what she has done, she looks inside the box once more. She discovers hope still in the box and releases it to temper the escaped evils and assuage mankind's new burden.

SKU: AP.SB90

ISBN 9780769221311. UPC: 029156185300. 9x12 inches. English.

Edited especially for flute players. May be used as supplementary etudes or just for fun.

SKU: PR.466000470

UPC: 680160099405. 11 x 17 inches.

This is the second incarnation of a work I first composed in 1994 for symphonic wind ensemble. The earlier version was intended to be the summation of three-part suite, each part being named for a different national park in the Western United States. This orchestral version, commissioned in 1999 by the Utah Symphony and dedicated to the memory of Aaron Copland, is more than a re-scoring of the earlier piece; it is a re-thinking of all its elements. Zion is a place with unrivaled 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 his 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.

SKU: HL.7011788

UPC: 884088543037. 9x12 inches.

This Santana hit has endured through the years and been recorded countless times. Here it is like you've never heard it before in the masterful hands of Michael Mossman! Arranged for David Sanborn, it has substantial solo space for alto sax, but other soloists include trombone, trumpet and guitar. The opening features a laid back cha-cha feel with colorful scoring (flute is optional) before developing into a real powerhouse for the rest of the chart.