Making Music Across Generations – March 6, 2023

Hello MSW Friends!

Your section leader has received electronic copies of your section’s music. Please be on the lookout for an email from your section leader with your parts. Remember that you’re responsible for printing your own parts this concert cycle. 

Rehearsal starts well before our first downbeat on January 18. Please take a moment to listen to our repertoire and study your parts. 

Einstein on 6th Street, Montoya Jr.
Listen
Quarter = 104

From the composer: “Einstein on 6th Street evokes a cultural collision between the highbrow opera hall and the popular entertainment venue. At the outset of this piece, sustained notes in the baritone saxophone recall the opening progression from the iconic American opera Einstein on the Beach, written by Philip Glass and premiered nearly forty years ago on July 25, 1976.” Written originally for saxophone ensemble!

Handel in the Strand, Grainger, arr. Goldman
Listen
Quarter = 120 – 132

From the composer: “My title was originally Clog Dance. But my dear friend William Gair Rathbone (to whom the piece is dedicated) suggested the title Handel in the Strand, because the music seemed to reflect both Handel and English musical comedy [the Strand — a street in London — is the home of London musical comedy] — as if jovial old Handel were careering down the Strand to the strains of modern English popular music.”

Incidental Suite, Smith
Listen
Quarter = Various

Incidental Suite includes three movements. The first movement, Tarantella, features 6/8 time and lots of hemiola. The second movement is the slow and lazy Nocturne, and the third movement, Rondo, is a conversation between percussion and the other sections of the band.

Lyrical Fantasy, Fukushima
Listen
Quarter = 60

Commissioned by the Hiroshima Symphonic Familia Wind Orchestra, Fukushima wanted to write a piece that expressed the emotional experience of the atomic bomb attack without writing explicitly programmatic music. 

Medalist Fanfare, Giroux
Listen
Quarter = 90

Commissioned by the Missouri Bandmasters Association. From the composer: “I wanted to challenge those fine All State Musicians but not limit the rehearsal time for all of the other pieces. It is an energetic fanfare that was composed with a medal receiving event in mind: proud, bold and uplifting.”

Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, Sousa, arr. Fennell
Listen
Quarter = 120

Sousa was asked to write this march when he became a member of the Shriners in April 1922. It premiered in June 1923 by a band of 6,200 Shriners in Washington DC’s Griffith Stadium. This was the largest band Sousa (or anyone, likely) ever conducted. 

Sunny-Side Up, Markowski
Listen
Quarter = 96

From the composer: “It’s a piece full of energy and anticipation. From the very first measure, we’re up and at ‘em! We’re flying fast after our early morning worm, pecking the ground incessantly in search of our breakfast. The musical caffeine flowing through our melodies makes the notes perk up loudly, sometimes obnoxiously so. They even get a bit twitchy as the piece unfolds. Aside from this morning rush, I think this piece is an homage to morning people. It’s an ode to the cockeyed optimistic and is dedicated to people who always ‘look on the sunny-side’ of life no matter what time it is or how many yolks might break along the way.”


You can also listen to most of the rep as a YouTube playlist.

Thank you!
Amanda Lanser
MSW librarian
amanda.c.lanser@gmail.com