Category: TEST PIECES (Major Works) Composer / arranger: Derek Bourgeois
(Duration approx. 8’30") Aspirations was especially written for young bands, and is designed to test the rhythmic and melodic skills of the players. The scoring throughout uses many ensemble groupings, producing challenging sonorities.
Aspirations was the set work for the Youth Section of The National Brass Band Championships of Great Britain and was first performed at the Royal College of Music, London, on Sunday 9th October, 1983.
Category: TEST PIECES (Major Works) Composer / arranger: Derek Bourgeois
(Duration approx. 8’30")
Aspirations was especially written for young bands, and is designed to test the rhythmic and melodic skills of the players. The scoring throughout uses many ensemble groupings, producing challenging sonorities.
Aspirations was the set work for the Youth Section of The National Brass Band Championships of Great Britain and was first performed at the Royal College of Music, London, on Sunday 9th October, 1983.
Categories: NEW & RECENT Publications, TEST PIECES (Major Works) Composer: Philip Wilby
For the Whitburn Band
Philip Wilby (2022)
ASTRALIS
for Brass Band
1 : Prologue : Ice and Fire
2 : Deep Field
3 : Black Hole
4 : Nebula
5 : Epilogue Ad Astra
The James Webb Space Telescope was launched on 25 December 2021.
JWST's primary mirror consists of 18 hexagonal mirror segments made of gold-plated beryllium,making it the largest and most complete space telescope in history.
The famous ‘Pillars of Creation’ image, which is shown on the cover of this score,is one of the first to be brought to world attention.
Astralis takes various images, drawn from the telescope's deep field infra-red photographs as the starting point for its five sections.
These consist of a Prologue : Ice and Fire. After the opening chorale section,
I have composed a sound track to one of JWST zoomed images,
moving through space and time towards a distant and very beautifully lit nebula.
Second comes a sequence of musical images exploring the ‘Deep Field’ photographs.
Many of the objects that we can see sent their light towards us hundreds of years ago, and the results are both captivating and mysterious.
The vastness of space and the multiplicity of galaxies is a subject of infinite wonder.
The Black Hole section mirrors the inexorable progress of all matter and light towards the Black hole, where gravity is so intense that not even light can escape.
The final explosion of a star casts clouds of light and dust into space, and these vast quantities of material can often reform into new worlds.
The ‘Pillars of Creation’, found in the Eagle Nebula, may well be such a nursery for new stars.
The Epilogue ‘Ad Astra’ represents our own desire to travel and explore the vastness of the space
that surrounds us, and the countless possibilities shown to us by the James Web Space Telescope.
Astralis has been composed for the Whitburn Brass Band to play at the European Brass Band Championships, held in Malmo on May 7th 2023.
Categories: TEST PIECES (Major Works), NEW & RECENT Publications Composer: Philip Wilby
For the Whitburn Band
Philip Wilby (2022)
ASTRALIS
for Brass Band
1 : Prologue : Ice and Fire
2 : Deep Field
3 : Black Hole
4 : Nebula
5 : Epilogue Ad Astra
The James Webb Space Telescope was launched on 25 December 2021.
JWST's primary mirror consists of 18 hexagonal mirror segments made of gold-plated beryllium,making it the largest and most complete space telescope in history.
The famous ‘Pillars of Creation’ image, which is shown on the cover of this score,is one of the first to be brought to world attention.
Astralis takes various images, drawn from the telescope's deep field infra-red photographs as the starting point for its five sections.
These consist of a Prologue : Ice and Fire. After the opening chorale section,
I have composed a sound track to one of JWST zoomed images,
moving through space and time towards a distant and very beautifully lit nebula.
Second comes a sequence of musical images exploring the ‘Deep Field’ photographs.
Many of the objects that we can see sent their light towards us hundreds of years ago, and the results are both captivating and mysterious.
The vastness of space and the multiplicity of galaxies is a subject of infinite wonder.
The Black Hole section mirrors the inexorable progress of all matter and light towards the Black hole, where gravity is so intense that not even light can escape.
The final explosion of a star casts clouds of light and dust into space, and these vast quantities of material can often reform into new worlds.
The ‘Pillars of Creation’, found in the Eagle Nebula, may well be such a nursery for new stars.
The Epilogue ‘Ad Astra’ represents our own desire to travel and explore the vastness of the space
that surrounds us, and the countless possibilities shown to us by the James Web Space Telescope.
Astralis has been composed for the Whitburn Brass Band to play at the European Brass Band Championships, held in Malmo on May 7th 2023.
Categories: TEST PIECES (Major Works), SALVATIONIST MUSIC Composer / arranger: Ray Steadman Allen
Salvation Army Judd Street Collection
At the Edge of Time is a Sinfonietta of three movements. The first is based on The Head that once was Crowned with Thorns, whilst the second is an eloquently vocal cornet solo. The Finale is the closest that Steadman-Allen gets to the impish tonal humour of Heaton and has a glorious surprise ending and reprise of the opening hymn.
Category: TEST PIECES (Major Works) Composer / arranger: Philip Wilby
Philip Wilby writes : "this work was commissioned by Per Einar Tomren for the Tomra Brass Band of Norway. The band comes from a shipbuilding community on Norway's fjord coast, and many of its members work in the shipping industry. Thus my choice of extra musical imagery is atribute to their traditions, and to the relationship of mankind with the mighty seas of the North Atlantic. The piece is a Concerto Grosso, that is a work for several solo players, who are surrounded by a larger group of musicians who support the musical argument, provide antiphonal musical opportunities, and on occasions overwhelm the solo group in climatic outbursts. mp3 example 1 - The piece has an energetic opening movement, which returns at the end ( mp3 example 3), and surrounds an elegiac central section, ( mp3 example 2) haunted by muted tones and expressive solos for the inner circle of players. The score is prefaced by a quotation from Psalm 107 : "They that go down to the sea in ships and occupy their business in great waters, These men see the works of the Lord, And his wonders in the deep" duration 14.35
Category: TEST PIECES (Major Works) Composer: Oliver Waespi
Commissioned by the Swiss Brass Band Association for the 34th European Brass Band Contest 2011 Montraux, Switzerland Test piece championship section with the kind financial support of the Swiss Wind Band Federation.
Programme note :
Whist composing AUDIVI MEDIA NOCTE, I was driven by several conflicting musical ideas. On the one hand, I was partly inspired by the sixteenth-century motet by Thomas Tallis from which the piece draws its title. Tallis’s motet is sung primarily on All Saints’ Day, and its title means “I heard, at midnight .“ Having remembered and cherished this motet for many years, I felt it was time to let it finally have an influence in my own music, On the other hand, I experienced the need for a considerable kinetic energy in order to outweigh the calm, contemplative flow of the motet and to place Tallis’s music into a more contemporary context. Hence, various rhythmical motifs began to emerge, some of which were in turn secretly related to the rhythmical structure of the motet. Moreover, I developed a series of chords whose harmony constitutes a counterpoint to the modal background of the motet.
Gradually, the piece developed a character of its own, loosely connected to the mystical imagery of the night hiding our secret passions and regrets. it evolved into an instrumental drama rather than a set of variations, including elements of a concerto grosso, as groups of soloists are featured In quite unusual ways. The sonic character of a brass band, with Its preponderance of heavy, low registers, its lyrical potential end its ability to shape compact rhythmical gestures, proved favourable to my musical intentions, AUDIVI MEDIA NOCTE thus became a musical tale that oscillates somehow between past end present, between contemplation and frivolity, between prayer and rave.
Performance notes :
Throughout the piece, notes in brackets cat be left out if necessary for technical reasons, e.g. for breathing or to avoid difficult gaps.
Don’t overplay the fermatas, just use them in order to create a natural timing, thereby contributing to the calm atmosphere of most slow sections where fermatas occur.
Crescendi and decrescendi without any indication of starting or ending dynamics don’t have to be exaggerated, but are suggestions for the expressive shaping of a line ( just like slurs indicating the expression rather than the phrasing).
Percussion players in the Solo Groups A and B — bongo and snare drum players that is — are invited to enrich their respective parts according the stylistic background of the passages (with a funk “feel’ or ‘with a “Jazz feel”), Such improvisational enhancement should, however, stay within tine prescribed structure, contribute to rather than inhibit the respective grooves, and never cover other instruments beyond the Indicated dynamics, Similar considerations apply to the short solo cadenza of the snare drum player in Solo Group B at letter (K, which should In any case slay In tempo, and exclude any rubato playing.
For some vibraphone passages a pedal symbol is applied to large groups of notes, This is a way Of creating certain harmonic fields. However depending on the player’s preferences, the particular Instrument, and the acoustics, you may have to include smaller or larger groups of notes within the pedal, in order to avoid too blurred a sonic Image.
Those parts or the piece which are marked ‘with a jazz feel’ should not be performed in a swing style, as they are remotely inspired by fusion or jazz rock artists such as the Headhunters or the Brecker Brothers, whose playing of semiquavers seems closer to a duple rather than a triple feel. in any case, the quavers/eighth notes and semiquavers / sixteenth notes should always be played straight.
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