SKU: PR.44641192L

UPC: 680160610860. 11 x 14 inches.

One of my greatest pleasures in writing a concerto is exploring the new world that opens for me each time I enter the sometimes alien, but always fascinating, world of a solo instrument or instruments. For me, the challenge is to discover the deepest nature of the solo instrument (its karma, if you will) and to allow that essential character to guide the shape and form of the work and the nature of the interaction between soloists and orchestra. In recent years, many of us have become more aware of the musical world outside the Western tradition of musics that follow different procedures and spring from other aesthetics. And contemporary percussionists have opened many of these worlds to us, as they have ventured around the globe, participating in Brazilian Samba schools, studying Gamelan and African drumming with local experts, collecting instruments from Asia and Africa and South America and the South Pacific, widening our horizons in the process. I will never forget our first meeting in Toronto when Nexus invited me into their world of hundreds of exciting percussion instruments. The vast array of instruments in the collection of the Nexus ensemble is truly global in scope as well as offering a thrilling sound-universe. I was inspired by the incredible range of sound and moved by the fact that so many of these instruments were musical reflections of a spiritual dimension. After long consideration, I decided that it would not only be impossible, but even undesirable for this Western-tradition-steeped composer to attempt to use these instruments in a culturally authentic way. My goal was an existential kind of authenticity: searching instead for universal ideas that would be true to both myself and the performers while acknowledging the traditional uses of the instruments. Since many percussion instruments are associated with various kinds of ritual, I decided that I would allow that concept to shape my piece. Rituals is in four movements, each issuing from a ritual associated with percussion, but with the orchestral interaction providing an essential element in the musical form. I. Invocation alludes to the traditions of invoking the spirit of the instruments, or the gods, or the ancestors before performing. II. Ambulation moves from a processional, through march and dance to fantasy based on all three. III. Remembrances alludes to traditions of memorializing. IV. Contests progresses from friendly competition games, contests to a suggestion of a battle of big band drummers, to warlike exchanges. In the 2nd and 4th movements, another percussion tradition, improvisation, is employed. Written into these movements are a number of seeds for improvisation. Indications in the score call for the soloists to improvise in three different ways, marked A for percussion alone; marked B for percussion with and in response to the orchestra; and C where the percussionists are free to add and embellish the written parts. These improvisations should grow out of and embellish previous motives and gestures in the movement.

SKU: PR.41641613L

UPC: 680160642199. 11 x 17 inches.

On the island of Elba, off the coast of Italy, I composed this work as the sun was rising over the ocean in the mornings and gently sifting through the clouds against the lingering fog. As the piece developed, it took on a shape of its own and gradually became centered around diminished chords and the interval of a tri-tone (diminished 5th). I love these chords for their angst and for their sadness, but also for their flexibility. My piece is very textural in nature; and yes, it does have a melody of sorts, and yet, this melody comes and goes, and is never quite grasped until the end. Portions of it are repeated and spun out creating layers of sound without the heaviness of form. It is indeed a depiction of mist, where one minute you see things and the next they are gone. As you move through the piece, you find that the trumpet is also an antagonist, creeping in with a haunting cry; a reminder of things unsettled. Throughout the piece, we are quietly searching. We search for a tonal center for stability, and also for a melody that will make us feel fulfilled. Once found, we hold them for an instant, and then like the clouds and like life itself, they are gone. We are warmed by their presence and saddened by their loss. I hope that you will reflect upon your own memories of life's quiet moments as we enjoy the world premiere of this new work together. Mist is not a piece to be analyzed, but rather a piece to be experienced and absorbed. As you listen, release your mind, embrace your emotions, close your eyes, and allow the mist to creep in.

SKU: KJ.WB485F

UPC: 8402704837.

Take a trip through the Donut Factory! Donut Factory is a lighthearted beginning band piece inspired by the idea of a factory where donuts travel a conveyor belt and get shaped, glazed, iced and sprinkled. It features a fun bass line for the low brass in which the trombones play a glissando. Various auxiliary percussion instruments are used throughout to depict the various stages of the donut making process. Simple quarter- and eighth note rhythms and limited pitches are ideal for the young band.

About Tradition of Excellence: Excellence in Performance

Excellence in performance is a concert band repertoire series correlated with the Tradition of Excellence Comprehensive Band Method by Bruce Pearson and Ryan Nowlin. The compositions in the series correlate to a specific page in Tradition of Excellence Books 1, 2, or 3 and reinforce and expand on skills and concepts introduced in the method.

/Selections include exciting parts for every player, grade-appropriate cross-cueing, accessible ranges and rhythms, creative percussion writing, electric bass and rehearsal piano parts, and full conductor scores with rehearsal suggestions, program notes and composer biographies. In addition, the Grade 1 works provide an Advanced Snare Drum part for percussionists who have achieved a higher level of ability, playable simultaneously with the more basic Snare Drum part to facilitate differentiated learning.

SKU: CF.SPS78

ISBN 9781491152553. UPC: 680160910052. Key: Bb major.

Festival March is presented in a new edition arranged by Richard Summers. It is a tour de force composition for advanced bands and hearkens back to a bygone era during the golden age of the band movement. Directors and students will hear operatic music from composer Victor Herbert who is best known for his Christmas classic, Toyland. This is a richly scored masterpiece that deserves to return to standard status in concert band repertoire. We are proud to bring you this new setting of this cherished classic.
Festival March by Victor Herbert was written for the Pittsburgh Symphony and first performed under Herbert’s direction in Chicago on Dec. 9, 1901 celebrating the 12th anniversary of Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre. Also known as the Auditorium Festival March, he included it many times for programs of a festival nature. The main theme Auld Lang Syne, a famous Scottish folk song, is incorporated many times along with brass fanfares, interludes and march melodies. This band arrangement is very similar to the original orchestral composition. The missing string parts, the addition of the saxophone section and other band instruments, editing of the superimposed triplets against sixteenth notes, to one or the other, and articulations suitable for the band, were major challenges. The style of early twentieth-century American music is captured here. This arrangement will give band musicians access to a fine piece of music that could only be appreciated by orchestra musicians up to now. Although suitable for many occasions, this piece is a great way to begin or end a December holiday concert.  Notes to the ConductorVictor Herbert’s music can be interpreted in a romantic style, which is the conductor’s responsibility to read in nuance and musicality. The beginning and other triple-tonguing sections of this piece have a March of the Toys quality to it.  The interludes and Auld Lang Syne sections are legato and musical. The March sections can also be shaped musically.About the ComposerVictor Herbert was born in Ireland in 1861 and raised in Germany. When he moved to America in 1886, he joined the Metropolitan Opera as principal cellist and eventually composed many works including forty-three operettas on Broadway from the 1890s to World War I, including Naughty Marietta and Babes in Toyland. Victor Herbert conducted the Pittsburgh Symphony from 1898 to 1904 and then was the conductor of his own Victor Herbert Orchestra. He formed ASCAP with a group of composers in 1914 and was the director until his death in 1924. Among his thirty-one compositions for orchestra, Festival March was a favorite of his and was eventually published by Carl Fischer Music.  .

SKU: PR.114412930

UPC: 680160571604. 8.5 x 11 inches. Text: Li Bai. Li Bai. Three poems by Li Bai (701 - 762).

It's a privilege to write a new work for my friend, the pipa master Ms. Wu Man to perform in the 05/06 concert season. Remembering the first time we worked together in 1991, Wu Man premiered my solo piece The Points on the age-old Chinese traditional instrument, with her adventurous virtuosity and sensibility in the piece with new musical concept and language, at the NewWorkOctober concert series at Columbia University in New York, presented by New Music Consort. I have been very happy to keep track with her new experiment and success in the new music field since then. Again, in 2001, I have composed a trio for her to play with Yo-Yo Ma and Young-Nam Kim, commissioned by the Chamber Music Society of Minnesota for the Hun Qiao project. Wu Man loved the piece so much that she commissioned me another new work to perform this time. In Chinese cultural tradition, in which I am deeply rooted, music is a part of an organic art form, along with poetry, calligraphy and painting. I am glad that Wu Man suggested to create our new work together with visual artist Catherine Owens. We are going to combine the art forms together in one. I got my inspiration from three ancient poems, which are drawn in Chinese calligraphy, with exaggerated dancing lines and shapes in layers of ink. The music would go with image projection in Chinese painting according to the poems. Written for Wu Man and commissioned by the Walton Arts Center, Fayetteville, AR, the duet Ancient Dances is written for pipa and a set of percussion instruments (including a pair of naobo, finger cymbals, and bongos; a Japanese high woodblock, a triangle, 3 Beijing Opera gongs in small, medium and large sizes, a suspended cymbal and a conga). It consists of three movements of music - Cheering, Longing, and Wondering, in which the music abstractly represents various expressions, in different textures and tempi, inspired by the text in the three Chinese poems by Li Bai from Tang Dynasty: 1) Riding on My Skiff; 2) Night Thoughts; 3) The Cataract of Mount Lu. The flying lines, as like mysterious and vivid ancient dances, bring the music, the calligraphy, and the painting all together in our work. --Chen Yi.
It's a privilege to write a new work for my friend, the pipa master Ms. Wu Man to perform in the 05/06 concert season. Remembering the first time we worked together in 1991, Wu Man premiered my solo piece The Points on the age-old Chinese traditional instrument, with her adventurous virtuosity and sensibility in the piece with new musical concept and language, at the NewWorkOctober concert series at Columbia University in New York, presented by New Music Consort. I have been very happy to keep track with her new experiment and success in the new music field since then. Again, in 2001, I have composed a trio for her to play with Yo-Yo Ma and Young-Nam Kim, commissioned by the Chamber Music Society of Minnesota for the Hun Qiao project. Wu Man loved the piece so much that she commissioned me another new work to perform this time.In Chinese cultural tradition, in which I am deeply rooted, music is a part of an organic art form, along with poetry, calligraphy and painting. I am glad that Wu Man suggested to create our new work together with visual artist Catherine Owens. We are going to combine the art forms together in one. I got my inspiration from three ancient poems, which are drawn in Chinese calligraphy, with exaggerated dancing lines and shapes in layers of ink. The music would go with image projection in Chinese painting according to the poems.Written for Wu Man and commissioned by the Walton Arts Center, Fayetteville, AR, the duet Ancient Dances is written for pipa and a set of percussion instruments (including a pair of naobo, finger cymbals, and bongos; a Japanese high woodblock, a triangle, 3 Beijing Opera gongs in small, medium and large sizes, a suspended cymbal and a conga). It consists of three movements of music - Cheering, Longing, and Wondering, in which the music abstractly represents various expressions, in different textures and tempi, inspired by the text in the three Chinese poems by Li Bai from Tang Dynasty: 1) Riding on My Skiff; 2) Night Thoughts; 3) The Cataract of Mount Lu. The flying lines, as like mysterious and vivid ancient dances, bring the music, the calligraphy, and the painting all together in our work.—Chen Yi.

SKU: PR.31241902S

UPC: 680160690589. English.

Commissioned by the San Francisco Choral Society and the Piedmont East Bay Children’s Choir, Terra Nostra is a 70-minute oratorio on the relationship between our planet and humankind, how this relationship has shifted over time, and how we can re-establish a harmonious balance. Part I: Creation of the World explores various creation myths from different cultures, culminating in a joyous celebration of the beauty of our planet. Part II: The Rise of Humanity examines human achievements, particularly since the dawn of our Industrial Age, and how these achievements have impacted the planet. Part III: Searching for Balance questions how to 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. In addition to the complete oratorio, stand-alone movements for mixed chorus, and for solo voice with piano, are also available separately.
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?

SKU: XC.WB2203

ISBN 9781644021026. 12 x 9 inches.

The resurgence of the Sea Shanty as a cultural phenomenon in 2020 was a perfect flashpoint for this collection of 16 well-known and re-discovered shanties. Arranger Tyler Arcari uses his experience at writing flexible music that works to bring this new addition to your adaptable library. Playable with as little as three musicians or expandable to an entire concert ensemble; these Shanties bring a whole new meaning to the phrase All Hands on Deck. The Adaptable Ensemble Series has become a well-established resource for chamber music and this new edition is in top shipshape order.