UVM Band - Spring 2025

UVM Band - Spring 2025


Energetikos – Gary Gilroy

YouTube video (Ward Melville Wind Ensemble, E. Setauket, NY)                  MP3 audio (Unkown group)               

Energetikos is a wildly energetic and rhythmic piece for concert band.  The title of the work comes from the Greek and word that means "to be active."  The piece begins with percussion alone presenting an interesting metric shift that puts the piece into overdrive.  Muted trumpets enter with a short accompanimental motif that is used throughout much of the work.  The solo marimba is used to bridge the various sections of the work together with ostinati that fade in and out of the textures.  A lyric middle section offers some relief to the intense beginning and end of the work.          - Gary Gilroy


Rondo Festivo – Joseph Compello

Video/with score (from publisher's website - select the page icon and manually scroll through)                  YouTube video (Rockland Co. Concert Band, NY)

As the title indicates, Rondo Festivo is carefree and joyous. The composer creates an unusual rhythmic feel by writing much of the piece in 5/4 meter, but using additive rhythmic grouping of 3+3+2+2 to create a "lopsided" 4/4 rhythm.


Riptides – Katahj Copley

Video (U. of Jamestown Wind Ensemble - No. Dakota)                                      Audio (from composer's website)        
Video (Jacksonville State Band - Alabama)                                                         Audio (1st performance, high quality audio)

Throughout Earth’s time, many myths about what the ocean contains have emerged. Mermaids, sea monsters and creatures of the unknown are expected to be dwelling under the sea. In 1721, Hans Egede, a Dano-Norwegian missionary, set sail to Godthåb, the largest city on the western coast of Greenland. On this voyage, he observed: “[the] most terrible creature resembling nothing they saw before. The monster lifted its head so high that it seemed to be higher than the crow’s nest on the mainmast. The head was small and the body short and wrinkled. The unknown creature was using giant fins which propelled it though the water. Later the sailors saw its tail as well. The monster was longer than the whole ship.”

 

The deepest point ever reached by man is 35,858 feet below sea level, which happens to be the deepest known point on Earth’s Ocean floor. Around 700 feet below sea level, light disappears; therefore, the rest of the journey to the bottom of the hydrosphere is in complete darkness through the unknown. 

 

After learning about Egede and his voyage, I realized how fearful the Ocean can be and how little we know about it.  I began composing Riptides to depict my exploration of the Ocean. The piece begins with a call to the sea and develops into its melody, which is surrounded by a scheme of danger. As Riptides continues, the energy races through this quality of danger and fear, represented by a mermaid call. The piece is built on eccentric percussion instruments such as the conch shell horn, ocean drums and thumb rolls on the timpani and bass drum. Decorated elements such as dissonant textures and glissando techniques are used, differing from any other piece I have written thus far. As the frantic thrill continues to the pivotal point of the piece, Riptides takes a voyage to the deepest parts of the unknown - of the unfamiliar.       
- Katahj Copley


Sòlas Ané – Sam Hazo

YouTube video (First Coast Wind Symphony, Sam Hazo, conducting)      YouTube video (Glendale Community College Symphonic Winds, Arizona - more recent video)
YouTube video (with scrolling score)                

In December of 2003, I had the pleasure of meeting Margene Pappas, Director of Bands at Oswego (IL) High School.  A few years later Margene, who is Irish, commissioned a composition as a gift to her band when she retired. All of the themes in Sòlas Ané are original, though they are presented in a Celtic style. 'Sòlas' and 'Ané' are Gaelic words that mean 'joy' and 'yesterday.'  The name was given in honor of the joy Margene Papas found each day with her students. Margene is the epitome of the phrase, ‘Winners aren't in it for the race. They just love to run.’ Turning on the band room lights every morning for 37 years was Margene Pappas' passion."   

  - Sam Hazo


Carmina Burana – Carl Orff/Krance

YouTube video (Knightwind Ensemble, Milwaukee - they perform the whole piece, so note the timestamps)        YouTube video (Taipei Symphonic Winds)       
YouTube Video
of the original version for choir + orchestra (Choral Society of Durham, NC; again, note the timestamps since this is the entire piece!)   
Audio files of individual movements (Peabody Wind Ensemble):  1    2    3    9    12    13

Vlog about an upcoming performance w/historical background and context     
       

The 13th Century Wheel of Fortune is the basis for Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, a collection of 25 songs for voices and orchestra, produced by its composer as a ballet.  Orff's text, in Medieval Latin and German, was taken from the writings of goliards: wandering monks who tempered their religious beliefs with secular pleasures such as gambling and drinking.  A collection of these poems was published in 1847 in Germany under the title Carmina Burana: "carmina" comes from a Latin word that refers to student songs, and "burana" was the Latin name for the area known today as Bavaria.  Both sacred and secular, the texts frankly extol the beauty of life and the glory of spring.

American arranger John Krance, who served as Chief Arranger for the United States Army Field Band, re-orchestrated thirteen pieces for wind band.  O Fortune, variable as the moon and I lament Fortune's blows, the first two movements, both deal with the capricious nature of fortune.  Behold the spring is a song in three parts, with each part faster than the previous. When we are in the tavern reflects the congregation.  Hail, most beautiful one, a series of three measure phrases, leads directly into Fortune, Empress of the World, a return to the theme of the cruelty of Fate and a repeat of the first movement. 

The theme from the O Fortuna movement is one of the most popular and well-known in the world because of its extensive use in popular media including in movies (The Hunt for Red October, Speed, and Paul Blart: Mall Cop), television shows (episodes of Friends, Survivor, and American Dad and ads for Gatorade and Old Spice), sports (by the New England Patriots, Univ. of Connecticut football team, the Pittsburgh Pirates, Detroit Red Wings, Southamption Football Club, and UFC fighter Nate "The Great" Marquat), and as entrance music for Ozzy Osbourne, Snoop Dogg, Black Eyed Peas, Michael Jackson, and the WWE fighter The Undertaker.

















Arabesque – Sam Hazo

Video (German Wind Philharmonic
)                                       Video w/score (from publisher's website)                              Score study video (score + analysis)    
Maqsum on dumbeg (the rhythm that starts at m. 15)           Maqsum in an ensemble                                                       
Maqsum for the tambourine         
Phyrgian Dominant scale (wikipedia page w/audio)              Wind Literature page with links to videos of Arabic music                  

Arabesque was commissioned by the Indiana Bandmasters Association and written for the 2008 Indiana All-State Band. Arabesque is based in the mystical sounds of Middle Eastern music and it is composed in three parts. “Taqasim” (tah’-zeem), “dabka” (dupp-keh) and “chorale.” The opening flute cadenza, although written out in notes, is meant to sound like an Arabic taqasim or improvisation. Much the same as in jazz improvisation, the soloist is to play freely in the scales and modes of the genre. In this case, the flute plays in bi-tonal harmonic minor scales, and even bends one note to capture the micro-tonality (quarter-tones) of the music from this part of the world. However, opposite to jazz, taqasim has very little change to the chordal or bass line accompaniment. It is almost always at the entrance to a piece of music and is meant to set the musical and emotional tone.

The second section, a dabka, is a traditional Arabic line dance performed at celebrations, most often at weddings. Its drum beat, played by a dumbek, s unmistakable. Even though rhythmically simple, it is infectious in its ability to capture the toe-tapping attention of the listener. The final section, the chorale, is a recapitulation of previous mystical themes in the composition, interwoven with a grandeur of a sparkling ending.

Both sets of my grandparents immigrated to the United States; my mother’s parents were Lebanese, my father’s mother was Lebanese and his father was Assyrian. Sometimes in composition, the song comes from the heart, sometimes from the mind, and sometimes (as in this case) it’s in your blood. The Indiana Bandmasters Association asked for a piece that was unique. I had not heard any full-out Arabic pieces for wind orchestra, and I knew of this culture’s deep and rich musical properties … so I figured that one might as well come from me.(Plus, my mom asked if I was ever going to write one.) I hope you enjoy Arabesque.  - Sam Hazo


Howl's Moving Castle – Joe Hisaishi

Audio of the arrangment (from the publisher)                                        Movie trailer                                                    Piano Tutorial with all the same tunes
Opening Song - Merry-Go-Round of Life (beginning - C)                      [Spotify] The Merry Light Cavalrymen (Letter C - D)
[Spotify] Cleaning House (Letter D - G)                                                 [Spotify]To Star Lake (Letter G - N) (G is from 1:00-1:30, I starts at 2:00)
[Spotify] Sophie's Castle (Letter N - Q)                                                  Promise of the World (Letter Q - T)
Video of Merry-Go-Round of Life (w/composer playing piano)              Merry-Go-Round of Life (w/score analysis!)

The 2004 animated fantasy movie Howl's Moving Castle is one of the most successful films in Japanese film history.  The movie is set in a fictional kingdom where both magic and technology are prevalent and tells the story of Sophie, a young hat-maker who is turned into an old woman by a witch. While she tries to break the curse, Sophie is lead to the castle of a wizard named Howl and begins a complicated adventure that is centered on a war between two kingdoms.