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£55.00Teens At The Junkyard - Brass Band Full Score & Parts - LM995
COMPOSER: Chris AllenProgramme NotesWriting about beautiful rural scenes and seascapes seems to be a very British thing to do. The themes of the English Pastoral School seem especially alive and well in the brass band musical repertoire, featuring in popular works such as John McCabe's Cloudcatcher Fells and Ray Steadman-Allen's Seascapes among many others. McCabe's engrossing depictions of place in Cloudcatcher, Maunsell Forts and Scenes in America Deserta conviced me that music really can transport the listener to a different environment, but rather than describing a landmark or a pastoral scene, I decided to give some attention to an ugly, neglected place.In Square Enix's Life is Strange, an episodic adventure game released in 2015, two teens use the local junkyard as a place of escape from the drama of their lives, unbeknowst to the fact that their friend, recently missing, was murdered and buried in that very place. Inspired by these dark images, I sought to write music that reflected the strewn broken glass, the piles of trash, the stories left behind in the waste of the junkyard. In keeping with this theme of buried history, I unearthed a musical relic from the brass band repertoire, cannibalising themes from Eric Ball's Journey into Freedom. In fragmenting and distorting such a treasured work I hope to make the listener feel a process of wasting away of precious memories.The first movement should be spiky, clinical and bleak, with a similar character to that of Harrison Birtwistle's Grimethorpe Aria, and the second, an intense, reminiscing, lyrical slow section. The final movement is in a similar vein to Elgar Howarth's Songs for B.L., ending with a blazing finish as if standing upon the tallest pile of trash in the junkyard and looking down upon the chaos below.Chris Allen (2021)About the Composer:Chris Allen, 22, studied Music at the University of Birmingham, graduating with a 1st in his Bachelor's degree in 2020 and achieving a Distinction in his Master's in Composition in 2021. Chris won the University of Birmingham Music Society's Composition Competition in 2019 with his piece for brass band, The Sirens, and was published for the first time by Modrana Music after winning the Durham University Brass Band's inaugural composition competition with his suite, Three Images of North-East England. Both pieces have been performed in concert and recorded recently and Chris continues to write new, original works for brass band.Chris started playing the tenor horn at the age of 7 under the tutelage of Don Blakeson, first joining the Melton Band and then moving onto Hathern Band,conducted by David Newman. Upon moving to university in Birmingham,Chris studied performance on the tenor horn with Owen Farr for a year,started playing with the University of Birmingham Brass Band, under thebaton of Stuart Birnie, and began writing and occasionally conducting his ownworks for brass band. However, his work is not confined to this ensemble,and as part of his studies, he has written for the Ligeti Quartet and theBirmingham Contemporary Music Group.
In Stock: Estimated dispatch 3-5 working days
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£22.50Edward Gregson: Concertante for Piano and Brass Band
DescriptionProgramme NoteThe Concertante for Piano and Brass Band was written in 1966, when the composer was an undergraduate student at the Royal Academy of Music in London. It received its first public concert performance in 1967 at the Royal Festival Hall, London, when the composer was the soloist with the International Band of the Salvation Army, conducted by Bernard Adams. It was one of the first major works to be written for this particular combination.The Concertante is unashamedly romantic in idiom and is in three movements: Prelude, Nocturne and Rondo. The Prelude is cast in sonata form and opens with a short cadenza-like flourish from the soloist, followed by two main ideas - the first sweepingly dramatic, the second highly lyrical. The interplay between these two themes forms the main focus of the movement, and after a return to the opening theme, an exuberant codetta brings the music to a close, albeit a quiet one. https://morthanveld.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Gregson-Concertante-1st-movt-clip.mp3The tender Nocturne opens with an introduction from the band that contains precursors of the two main ideas to follow. The solo piano announces the main theme, which has a slightly 'bluesy' character with its flattened third and seventh notes of the scale, and is a love song dedicated to the composer's wife-to-be. The band enters with phrases of a chorale already hinted at in the introduction - Ray Steadman-Allen's hymn tune 'Esher' - but never quite presented in its complete state. Both ideas are developed alongside each other, with eventually the first theme returning, this time with piano and band together, and building to a majestic climax, before subsiding to a peaceful coda - a return to the very opening of the movement. https://morthanveld.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Gregson-Concertante-movt-2-clip.mp3The final Rondo is full of energetic rhythms and changing time patterns. The main theme is playful in character, with much interplay between soloist and band, whilst the middle section presents a new theme, and one that has more than a hint of the hymn tune 'Onward Christian Soldiers', in what amounts to a good humoured parody. The opening Rondo theme returns, this time leading to a powerful and dissonant climax from the band. This is followed by an extended piano cadenza, underlying the virtuoso aspect of the work, and leading to an energetic and life-affirming coda, which brings the work to a triumphant conclusion. https://morthanveld.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Gregson-Concertante-movt-3-clip.mp3Duration: 18 minutesInstrumentation:Please note that there is no 1st/Repiano Cornet part in this work. The 1st/Repiano Cornet player should join the Solo Cornet bench. As such an extra Solo Cornet part is provided in the set of parts.Version for two pianosA version of the Concertante for two pianos is available for rehearsal purposes. Piano 1 is the solo part and Piano 2 the band reduction. However, for those pianists not needing to rehearse the work in this way, a solo piano part is also provided with the main set of band parts.To view a preview of the solo part for the first movement click here.The youthful Gregson (his work was written as a third year undergraduate) was seemingly a bit of a musical magpie - but one heck of a skilful one at that.These were shiny baubles of poise, panache and pastiche, with affectionate, remarkably mature nods of appreciation towards Gershwin, Rachmaninov, Ireland and even Elmer as well as Leonard Bernstein.The rich colour palette and flowing lines (with the tenderest of central Nocturnes) were a joy - as were the little buds of motifs that dotted the score like seeds ready to be planted on a future fertile brass band compositional field. - Iwan Fox, 4Barsrest.com, June 2019For more information on Edward Gregson's music please visit the composer's website: www.edwardgregson.com
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£34.95232.778C - Paul McGhee
'232.778C' was written during October 2016 and is a musical homage and reaction to Ray Bradbury's 'Fahrenheit 451' and the illustrations of the novel by Ralph Steadman. It received its premiere on Sunday 20th November at the 40th Brass in...
Estimated dispatch 5-7 working days
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£24.95Ave Maria - Johann Sebastian Bach, Charles Gounod - Ray Farr
There have been several settings of this Roman Catholic prayer to music, with the Bach/Gounod version being the most famous. It consists of the first prelude of Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier plus a melody that Gounod wrote over this. Gounod...
Estimated dispatch 5-7 working days
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£24.95Be My Love - Nicholas Brodszky & Sammy Cahn - Ray Farr
Be My Love was written for the film The Toast of New Orleans in 1950 and was nominated for an Academy Award in the same year. The story revolves around a rough-and-tumble fisherman from the Louisiana Bayous, who is gifted...
Estimated dispatch 5-7 working days
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£34.95Extracts from Symphony No. 3 - Aram Khachaturian - Ray Farr
Aram Ilich Khachaturian (1903 - 1978) started his career playing the tuba, before turning to the 'cello and later to composition. Inspired by Miaskowsky and Tchaikovsky, he produced music of a nationalist flavour which earned him the coveted Stalin Prize...
Estimated dispatch 5-7 working days
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£34.95Hjalar-Ljod Overture - Eivind Groven - Ray Farr
Eivind Groven (1901 - 1977) was a Norwegian composer with a special interest in folk music. The theme of this composition is based on signature tunes sung by shepherds in the vast mountain areas in Telemark, Norway. The shepherds would...
Estimated dispatch 5-7 working days
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£29.95Nocturne - Rolf Lovland - Ray Farr
As Norway's entry to the 1995 Eurovision Song Contest, the group Secret Garden made history by winning with Nocturne, an entry that was more an instrumental piece than a song. In the 40-year history of this prestigious pan-European television extravaganza,...
Estimated dispatch 5-7 working days
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£29.95The Good, The Bad and The Ugly - Ennio Morricone - Ray Farr
This humourous theatrical arrangement takes a satirical look at the many "spaghetti" Westerns. Ennio Morricone's immortal theme is the basis for a "shoot-out" between "Clint Eastwood" and a "Mexican Bandit", but (un)fortuantely the conductor gets caught in the crossfire! A...
Estimated dispatch 5-7 working days
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£34.95
HIGH COUNCIL, The (Brass Band Set) - Ray Steadman-Allen
This march was written at the request of the then Chief of the Staff, Commissioner Arnold Brown for the welcome meeting of the 1974 High Council, a gathering of The Salvation Army's top leaders from around the world who meet to elect a new General. The scintillating music is filled with many wonderful and surprising shifts of key, rhythm and instrumental colour. Evangeline Booth's song 'The world for God' provides the international reference while at the trio's peak, the composer joins three tunes in impressive counterpoint; 'We're the Army' (cornets), 'A Robe of White' (horns and baritones) and 'Bound for Canaan's Shore' (trombones). The march ends with a dazzling shift into triple time and an impressive molto allargando codetta.
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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