SKU: GI.G-317227
ISBN 9781574631784. UPC: 884088625160.
This extension of The Winds of Change, traces the development of the American wind band/ensemble in the twentieth century. It covers all the important conferences, concerts, events, initiatives, and compositions created for wind bands/ensembles during the first decade of the twenty-first century. In gathering information for this book, the author examined hundreds of scores, listened to dozens of recordings, attended conferences, interviewed wind band/ensemble director-conductors, and surveyed numerous professional journals and magazines. The result is a book that provides a panorama view of the American wind band/ensemble scene from 2000-2010.
SKU: HL.49045834
The relationship between music and architecture has for many decades been source of fascination for Gilbert. A range of works reflecting on the complexity and beauty of French medieval cathedrals has been the result. Ziggurat is in many ways a companion to these, albeit the type of structure it was engendered by existed a good millennium earlier. It was commissioned in 1993 by the Duo Contemporain, Henri Bok, bass clarinet and Miguel Bernat, percussion, as a sequal to a number of pieces hed written for them reflecting on the architecture of Chartes Cathedral. Although it was a type of memorial to a leading figure in Babylonian (or indeed Amerindian) society, the ziggurat celebrates life. Starting at ground level, a pathway or staircase winds up around the conical structure, decorated with passages of visual narrative and imagery. Gilberts duo for bass clarinet and marimba engages in a similar journey, continuously climbing but also episodic, withpassages of wild virtuoso music separated by steady, directed motion. Colour-changes involving bass clarinet multiphonics and rich chordal writing for the marimba feature strongly. In its original form the work lasted over eighteen minutes; in 2014 Gilbert decided to extensively rewrite the work in order to sharpen its musical focus. It is now just over two thirds of its original length, with resultant heightened intensity.