Open Commission for a Young Band Piece: Update

Hello everyone! We are approaching the end of the open join period for this commission and I hope others will join. The first portion of the work is just about complete and I will be working on the second portion (the up tempo section) in the coming months. It's not too late to join the consortium!

​Join HERE

Sample of Progress

There is a lot of literature out there for young bands - a lot centered around melody, harmony, and bass. A folk song arrangement here, a old hymn arrangement there, and a lot of other pieces designed to get the kids excited through some clever titling and programmatic elements. All of that is GREAT - effective with my own students. However, there is a lack of music that fits a more modern voicing style with thicker textures, suspensions, and other musical characteristics (think composers like John Mackey, Eric Whitacre, Frank Ticheli, etc.); obviously because music like that tends to result in works that is more difficult and less approachable for novice musicians. My approach with this piece is to find a way to greatly limit rhythms and pitch sets so that when learning music that doesn't rely nearly as much on melody and traditional harmony, musicians can focus most on balance, drama, tension, and tuning. This section of the piece does exactly that.

The second section will utilize motif development and energy, with some meter change without accompanying difficult rhythms. Again, allowing musicians to focus on elements of musical expression without being inhibited by range or rhythm. The goal is to produce a piece of music that is stylistically interesting for performers and audience, perfomable by almost any level of group, and utilize doubling and cued parts that make the piece effective for most bands' instrumentation.

Below is a screen shot of some of the piece and I've also included a virtual mock up (using GPO 5).

It's not too late to join!