Smoke Sketches is Daniel Hall’s first original work to be published in the Faber Music Brass Band Series. Daniel is one of the most gifted of the rising generation of composers writing for brass bands. Smoke Sketches was composed at the invitation of Brass Bands England for the Intermediate Section of the 2017 National Youth Brass Band Championships of Great Britain. This colourful jazzy suite draws inspiration from the ancient art of gazing into smoke from fire to find stories through the act of divination. Into the Blaze suggests someone briskly fire-walking barefoot with unexpected sparks fizzling from the ground. A Lonesome Ember capturesthe fleeting life of a small ember beginning insignificantly and gradually evolving into a larger being before disappearing into ash while Spark of Light bristles with life and energy. Band Grade 3/4 duration 8 minutes.

Journey of the Lone Wolf tells the story of the hungarian composer Béla Bartók. It was commissioned by Dr. Nicholas Childs for Black Dyke Band who gave the first performance on Sunday 26 January 2014 at the Bridgewater Hall Manchester as part of the Royal Northern College of Music Festival of Brass. The composer's programme notes for each movement:1. Capturing the Peasants SongAfter the upheaval of moving to Budapest the young Béla Bartók meets Zoltán Kodály and the pair embark on summertime adventures throughout the Hungarian countryside to collect and catalogue the astonishingvariety (both harmonically and rhythmically) of gypsy and folk music heard in the Balkans. The arrival of WW1 plunges Bartók's beloved Hungary into chaos.2. Night MusicBartók was at times a cold man aloof and lonely. The odd moments of tenderness he showed are portrayed here in a series of evocative solos. His brief but intense affairs speak of a love he could only long for. Jazz is my night music and here there are hints of what Bartók may have heard in the USA later in his life.3. Flight and FightHaving been forced by the world's evils to leave his homeland of Hungary for America Bartók the anti-fascist felt isolated and angry. In this movement we hear his longing for a simpler time of gypsy folk dances as well as his maturity and depth as a composer finally exploring deeper colours and darker themes.

Journey of the Lone Wolf tells the story of the hungarian composer Béla Bartók. It was commissioned by Dr. Nicholas Childs for Black Dyke Band who gave the first performance on Sunday 26 January 2014 at the Bridgewater Hall Manchester as part of the Royal Northern College of Music Festival of Brass. The composer's programme notes for each movement: 1. Capturing the Peasants SongAfter the upheaval of moving to Budapest the young Béla Bartók meets Zoltán Kodály and the pair embark on summertime adventures throughout the Hungarian countryside to collect and catalogue theastonishing variety (both harmonically and rhythmically) of gypsy and folk music heard in the Balkans. The arrival of WW1 plunges Bartók's beloved Hungary into chaos.2. Night MusicBartók was at times a cold man aloof and lonely. The odd moments of tenderness he showed are portrayed here in a series of evocative solos. His brief but intense affairs speak of a love he could only long for. Jazz is my night music and here there are hints of what Bartók may have heard in the USA later in his life.3. Flight and FightHaving been forced by the world's evils to leave his homeland of Hungary for America Bartók the anti-fascist felt isolated and angry. In this movement we hear his longing for a simpler time of gypsy folk dances as well as his maturity and depth as a composer finally exploring deeper colours and darker themes.

Par ARNOLD MALCOLM. Written in 1966, Arnold drew on a more personal inspiration for these dances rather than folk music. Transcribed by Ray Farr, the music depicts the fishermen, farm workers and tin miners native to Cornwall going about their lives - it also includes a brief visit to the local Methodist chapel for a Sunday morning sevice!/ Méthode / Brass Band

Written in 1966 Arnold drew on a more personal inspiration for these dances rather than folk music. Transcribed by Ray Farr the music depicts the fishermen farm workers and tin miners native to Cornwall going about their lives - it also includes a brief visit to the local Methodist chapel for a Sunday morning sevice!

Another World’s Hell was commissioned in versions for brass wind and fanfare bands by the Société Cantonale des Musiques Vaudoises and the Association Cantonale des Musiques Neuchâteloises for the 2013 Swiss Cantonales festivals. It is inspired by a passage in Aldous Huxley’s classic 1932 science-fiction novel Brave New World which  describes in unusually close detail the music that is being played at a dance. This is Dobson’s interpretation of  the  imagined  ‘future music’ that Huxley dreamed of. Brass Band Grade: 5Duration: 13 minutes

Handel in the Band is a virtuoso set of symphonic variations on one of Handel’s best known keyboard dances the Sarabande from his Suite in D minor HWV 437 based on the Spanish traditional dance La Folia. Kenneth Downie’s work was commissioned by Brass Band Treize Etoiles for performance at the 2013 Swiss National Brass Band Championships where it was conducted by James Gourlay. The title is a reference to Percy Grainger’s popular Handel in the Strand and is indicative of the witty and theatrical nature of the music which is more playful than conventional competition pieces and as such offers different challenges to brass bands as well as beingthoroughly entertaining for audiences. Kenneth Downie is one of the most respected and experienced brass band composers. His music has been widely performed and published throughout the brass band world since the 1960s.

'The Alchymist's Journal' gets its title from the book of the same name by American author Evan S. Connell. The book fictionalises a number of famous Alchemist’s writings each one developing another's thoughts thus continuing one idea but changing it subtly to provide a new view point or way of thinking. This process is in fact alchemical as one idea transmutes into another. This idea is parallel to the processes at work within these variants. The whole work is constructed from 6 notes (C A B flat E flat F sharp E) and is presented in nine different sections each individual in mood but still based upon the original pitches. This is not a thematic set ofvariations as the themes are developed one at a time from small segments of the six notes. For example the opening theme is the complete number of pitches the second theme uses three notes transposed then repeated at the original level and so on. Harmonically the six notes can be divided into two triads A minor and E flat minor – each key beginning and ending the piece respectively. Whilst this is essentially abstract music with no programme there is an introduction menacing scherzo slow reflective section followed by a recap of the scherzo and final coda. 'The Alchymist’s Journal' was commissioned by the Brass Band Heritage Trust at the suggestion of Paul Hindmarsh to whom the work is dedicated.