Format : Score and Parts
SKU: CF.SC73
ISBN 9780825893353. UPC: 798408093358. 8.5 x 11 inches.
Lively and animated, Missouriana is a classic hoedown for orchestra, rhythmic, toe-tapping music. The score is newly engraved, parts are available on rental. Marshall Fine currently serves as Assistant Principal Violist and Composer/Arranger in Residence for the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, having built an impressive lifetime of solo and chamber performances and conducting. His compositions number over 200, with a large majority concentrating on his own instrument, the viola.
SKU: PR.465000130
ISBN 9781598064070. UPC: 680160600144. 9x12 inches.
Following a celebrated series of wind ensemble tone poems about national parks in the American West, Dan Welcher’s Upriver celebrates the Lewis & Clark Expedition from the Missouri River to Oregon’s Columbia Gorge, following the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. Welcher’s imaginative textures and inventiveness are freshly modern, evoking our American heritage, including references to Shenandoah and other folk songs known to have been sung on the expedition. For advanced players. Duration: 14’.In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson sent Meriwether Lewis and William Clark’s Corps of Discovery to find a water route to the Pacific and explore the uncharted West. He believed woolly mammoths, erupting volcanoes, and mountains of pure salt awaited them. What they found was no less mind-boggling: some 300 species unknown to science, nearly 50 Indian tribes, and the Rockies.Ihave been a student of the Lewis and Clark expedition, which Thomas Jefferson called the “Voyage of Discovery,†for as long as I can remember. This astonishing journey, lasting more than two-and-a-half years, began and ended in St. Louis, Missouri — and took the travelers up more than a few rivers in their quest to find the Northwest Passage to the Pacific Ocean. In an age without speedy communication, this was akin to space travel out of radio range in our own time: no one knew if, indeed, the party had even survived the voyage for more than a year. Most of them were soldiers. A few were French-Canadian voyageurs — hired trappers and explorers, who were fluent in French (spoken extensively in the region, due to earlier explorers from France) and in some of the Indian languages they might encounter. One of the voyageurs, a man named Pierre Cruzatte, also happened to be a better-than-average fiddle player. In many respects, the travelers were completely on their own for supplies and survival, yet, incredibly, only one of them died during the voyage. Jefferson had outfitted them with food, weapons, medicine, and clothing — and along with other trinkets, a box of 200 jaw harps to be used in trading with the Indians. Their trip was long, perilous to the point of near catastrophe, and arduous. The dream of a Northwest Passage proved ephemeral, but the northwestern quarter of the continent had finally been explored, mapped, and described to an anxious world. When the party returned to St. Louis in 1806, and with the Louisiana Purchase now part of the United States, they were greeted as national heroes.Ihave written a sizeable number of works for wind ensemble that draw their inspiration from the monumental spaces found in the American West. Four of them (Arches, The Yellowstone Fires, Glacier, and Zion) take their names, and in large part their being, from actual national parks in Utah, Wyoming, and Montana. But Upriver, although it found its voice (and its finale) in the magnificent Columbia Gorge in Oregon, is about a much larger region. This piece, like its brother works about the national parks, doesn’t try to tell a story. Instead, it captures the flavor of a certain time, and of a grand adventure. Cast in one continuous movement and lasting close to fourteen minutes, the piece falls into several subsections, each with its own heading: The Dream (in which Jefferson’s vision of a vast expanse of western land is opened); The Promise, a chorale that re-appears several times in the course of the piece and represents the seriousness of the presidential mission; The River; The Voyageurs; The River II ; Death and Disappointment; Return to the Voyage; and The River III .The music includes several quoted melodies, one of which is familiar to everyone as the ultimate “river song,†and which becomes the through-stream of the work. All of the quoted tunes were either sung by the men on the voyage, or played by Cruzatte’s fiddle. From various journals and diaries, we know the men found enjoyment and solace in music, and almost every night encampment had at least a bit of music in it. In addition to Cruzatte, there were two other members of the party who played the fiddle, and others made do with singing, or playing upon sticks, bones, the ever-present jaw harps, and boat horns. From Lewis’ journals, I found all the tunes used in Upriver: Shenandoah (still popular after more than 200 years), V’la bon vent, Soldier’s Joy, Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier, Come Ye Sinners Poor and Needy (a hymn sung to the tune “Beech Springâ€) and Fisher’s Hornpipe. The work follows an emotional journey: not necessarily step-by-step with the Voyage of Discovery heroes, but a kind of grand arch. Beginning in the mists of history and myth, traversing peaks and valleys both real and emotional (and a solemn funeral scene), finding help from native people, and recalling their zeal upon finding the one great river that will, in fact, take them to the Pacific. When the men finally roar through the Columbia Gorge in their boats (a feat that even the Indians had not attempted), the magnificent river combines its theme with the chorale of Jefferson’s Promise. The Dream is fulfilled: not quite the one Jefferson had imagined (there is no navigable water passage from the Missouri to the Pacific), but the dream of a continental destiny.
SKU: GI.G-1117
UPC: 785147011729.
“History is written by the victors…†In societal struggles, those who “come out on top†seem to get to choose what is taught as history. With respect to racial matters in the United States, the struggles of people of color have simply not been a significant part of historical studies in American schools. The immense failure of Reconstruction on Black people in America is the cataclysm that is most pertinent to the retelling of Easter, 1906. Lynchings were a deeply disturbing and immoral method of dominating, primarily, Black people and terrorizing them into submission. Behind these exercises in mob violence lay frequently invented claims of crimes. Easter, 1906 recounts one such event that took place in Springfield, Missouri, over Easter weekend, 1906. Poet Robert Bode has collected material from historical documents of the period and created new poems that reflect upon this tragic event. In turn, Bode’s words are here set to music by composer William Averitt for double choir, spoken narration, piano four-hands, and two percussionists. Performed by the Missouri State University Chorale, conducted by Cameron LaBarr.  A powerful work like this is important because we can easily forget events that have contributed to the lingering blatant and hidden prejudices that exist today. It is through this musical presentation that musicians and audiences can have the tough yet meaningful conversations about how we all can do and be better when relating to others. —Marques L. A. Garrett   Conductor and Composer Learn more about the story behind this project in the video below:.