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 before our first downbeat on Wednesday. Please take a moment to listen to our repertoire and study your parts. 

Listen to our rep as a playlist on YouTube.

Basswood Canopy, Bergman
Listen
Quarter = 84
 
Inspired by standing beneath the green canopy of a basswood tree, Basswood Canopy evokes feelings of wonder, joy, and protection. It was composed for the Young Band Composition Consortium.

Downey Overture, Navarro
Listen
Quarter Note = 180

Written for the Downey Symphony Orchestra in California, Navarro wanted to link his birth country of Spain with California. It’s Latin-American fusion, joyful, energetic, and “written with all my enthusiasm and dedication,” according to the composer.

Equus, Whitacre
Listen
Half Note = 108

From the composer: “It took me a full eight months to write the piece. There are a LOT of notes, and I put every one on paper (with pencil). I wanted to write a moto perpetuo, a piece that starts running and never stops (‘equus’ is the Latin word for horse) and would also be a virtuosic show piece for winds. The final result is something that I call “dynamic minimalism,” which basically means that I love to employ repetitive patterns as long as they don’t get boring.”

Fantasia in G Major, Bach
Listen 
Half Note = 60

This arrangement of Bach’s G Major Fantasia for organ was a memorial to Edwin Franko Goldman, the first bandmaster to include the works of Bach regularly in band repertoire. It was premiered on July 1, 1957.

Feather, Fisher
Listen
Dotted Quarter = 128

Commissioned by a father in celebration of his nine-month-old son, Luca, for which he wrote this poem:
Luca
The Bringer of Light
From the East
On the bright Spring Son

He bears his lamp
With open palm
Welcome and warm
Like the setting sun of Sicily

In a house 
of sacred wood
He watches his world
Take Flight

Rising Light, Charoensri
Listen (featuring a familiar face!)
Quarter Note = 60

From the composer: “A few months ago, my mother asked me to walk with her to get groceries because she felt fearful of the violent, racist attacks on Asian American women across the country, such as the seven attacks on innocent Asian women in New York. From this, Rising Light was born. I knew I had to say something with my voice I had been given, which was in music. Asian Americans are raised to stay quiet and be non-confrontational about issues, and I found it hard to break my shell in writing. I was scared to write moments too big, and often thought about scrapping the piece. I, along with other Asian Americans, including my parents, had a fear of speaking up, which plagued me much of my life composing. Comments such as calling my music “too Asian” always got to my head, and I made sure I never used common Asian musical language or instruments in my music, such as a pentatonic scale or a gong in my pieces.

The name, Rising Light, is inspired by the floating Lantern Festival in Thailand, where I was raised, where people write their fears, worries, and thoughts on their mind and send it off on a lantern. For me, writing this piece has felt much like that, being a place for me to vent and express all my emotions regarding this issue. Despite being disgusted and saddened by the surge of Asian hate, I wanted this piece to non-apologetically celebrate both the beautiful cultures I grew up in. While there are dark moments in this piece, I wanted this piece to celebrate the beautiful bi-cultural identity of Asian Americans.”

Song for Mother Gaia, Duarte
Listen
Quarter = 58

Based on the poem “June Night” by Sara Teasdale:
OH Earth, you are too dear to-night,
How can I sleep while all around
Floats rainy fragrance and the far
Deep voice of the ocean that talks to the ground?
Oh Earth, you gave me all I have,
I love you, I love you,—oh what have I
That I can give you in return—
Except my body after I die?

Listen to our rep as a playlist on YouTube.

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