Concert Music Spring 24

Pixar Movie Magic - Arranged by Michael Brown (ASCAP)

About the Music

Since 1995 the creative team at Pixar Studios has given us heartwarming stories and unforgettable characters that appeal to audiences of all ages. In addition, the music created for these films is an integral part of their charm and popularity. Here is a terrific arrangement of these familiar melodies that will thrill audiences everywhere. Included are: You've Got a friend in Me ("Toy Story"), The Spirit of Adventure ("Up"), The Glory Days ("The Incredibles"), The Big Race ("Cars") and Ratatouille Main Theme. 

About the Composer

Michael Brown (b. 1962, New Orleans, La.) is an American composer and arranger. Brown earned his M.M. in music theory from the University of Texas at Austin and his B.M. in music theory from Furman University in Greenville, S.C.

Michael is currently a staff arranger for the United States Army Band ("Pershing's Own") in Washington, D.C., having served previously as chief arranger for the United States Military Academy Band at West Point, N.Y.

His arranging credits include: the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, the opening ceremonies of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City, Utah, the National Symphony Orchestra, and the Kennedy Center Honors in Washington, D.C. Michael draws upon his experience as a college and high school band director, church orchestra director, and freelance trumpeter.

Cajun Folk Songs…………….…………………...Frank Ticheli

          I. La Belle et le Capitaine

          II. Belle

About the Music

Cajuns are descendants of the Acadians, a group of early French colonists who began settling in Acadia (now Nova Scotia) around 1604. In 1755 they were driven out by the British, eventually resettling in south Louisiana. Today there are nearly a million French-speaking descendants of the Acadians living in Louisiana and parts of Texas, preserving many of the customs, traditions, stories, and songs of their ancestors.

Although a rich Cajun folk song tradition exists, the music has become increasingly commercialized and Americanized throughout the twentieth century, obscuring its original simplicity and directness. In response to this trend, Alan and John Lomax traveled to south Louisiana in 1934 to collect and record numerous Cajun folk songs in the field for the Archive of Folk Music in the Library of Congress. By doing so, they helped to preserve Cajun music in its original form as a pure and powerful expression of Louisiana French Society.

La Belle et le Capitaine and Belle can both be heard in their original versions on the Lomax recordings (Swallow LP-8003-2, Swallow Records Co., Ville Platte, Louisiana). La Belle et le Capitaine tells the story of a young girl who feigns death to avoid being seduced by a captain. Its Dorian melody is remarkably free, shifting back and forth between duple and triple meters. In this arrangement the melody is stated three times. The third time an original countermelody is added in flutes, oboe, clarinet, and trumpet.

Belle is about a man who goes away to Texas only to receive word of his sweetheart's illness, forcing him to return to Louisiana. Finding her unconscious upon his return, he pawns his horse to try to save her, to no avail. The folk melody is sometimes varied rhythmically, texturally, and coloristically, and an original melody is added for variety.

Cajun Folk Songs is composed as a tribute to the people of the old Cajun folk song culture with hopes that their contributions will not be forgotten. The work is dedicated to the Murchison Middle School Band, Austin, Texas, Cheryl Floyd, director, who commissioned the work and gave its premiere on May 22, 1990.

- Program Note by composer

About the Composer

Frank Ticheli (b. 21 January 1958, Monroe, La.) is an American composer and conductor.

Ticheli joined the faculty of the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music in 1991, where he served as Professor of Composition until 2023. From 1991 to 1998, Ticheli was Composer in Residence of the Pacific Symphony, and he still enjoys a close working relationship with that orchestra and their music director, Carl St. Clair.

Ticheli is well known for his works for concert band, many of which have become standards in the repertoire. In addition to composing, he has appeared as guest conductor of his music at Carnegie Hall, at many American universities and music festivals, and in cities throughout the world, including Schladming, Austria, at the Mid-Europe Music Festival; London and Manchester, England, with the Meadows Wind Ensemble; Singapore, with the Singapore Armed Forces Central Band; and numerous cities in Japan, with the Bands of America National Honor Band.

Frank Ticheli is the winner of the 2006 NBA/William D. Revelli Memorial Band Composition Contest for his Symphony No. 2. Other awards for his music include the Charles Ives and the Goddard Lieberson Awards, both from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Walter Beeler Memorial Prize, and First Prize awards in the Texas Sesquicentennial Orchestral Composition Competition, Britten-on-the-Bay Choral Composition Contest, and Virginia CBDNA Symposium for New Band Music.

Dr. Ticheli received his doctoral and masters degrees in composition from The University of Michigan. His works are published by Manhattan Beach, Southern, Hinshaw, and Encore Music, and are recorded on the labels of Albany, Chandos, Clarion, Klavier, Koch International, and Mark Records.

Three Ayres from Gloucester Hugh M. Stuart

           I. The Jolly Earl from Cholmondeley

           II. Ayre for Eventide

           III. The Fiefs of Wembley

About the Music

A three-movement suite written in the early English folksong style, this piece came into being as a result of the composer's fascination with an old 10th century couplet: 

There's no one quite so comely
As the Jolly Earl of Cholmondeley.

The resulting three compositions, The Jolly Earl of Cholmondeley [pronounced "Chumley"], Ayre for Eventide and The Fiefs of Wembley, are in early English folk song style and are designed to capture the mood of the peasants and their life on the fiefs of Wembley castle.

- Program Note from score

"Ayre" refers to a genre of solo song with lute accompaniment that flourished in England in the late 10th and early 17th centuries. Throughout the second movement of Stuart's Three Ayres, Ayre for Eventide, this songlike quality (Stuart indicates "much heart") is a prominent feature.

About the Composer

Pennsylvania native Hugh M. Stuart (1917-2006) had a varied career in music education, serving as a teacher, composer, and clinician, and more, for over three decades. His studies took him to Oberlin, Columbia Teachers College, Rutgers, Newark State, and the University of Michigan. His career spanned teaching positions in New Jersey and Maryland with clinic work in all but five US states. His compositions span a variety of primarily educational media, including band. He retired to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he passed away at age 89. 

The Bonsai Tree - Julie Giroux

About the Music

Sandai-Shogun no Matsu, a five-needle pine bonsai (Pinus pentaphylla var. negishi) is considered one of Japan’s national treasures. The tree is at least 500 years old and is considered to be one of the oldest known living bonsai trees. It is documented as having been cared for by Tokugawa Iemitsu (August 12, 1604 - June 8, 1651) who was the third shogun of the Tokugawa dynasty. Sandai-Shogun no Matsu is housed in the Tokyo Imperial Palace. "Although the center of this famous tree’s trunk is now totally hollow, it has been carefully nurtured for generations, and gazing at its gnarled form today, a sense of awe is felt at the forceful destiny that has allowed such a small piece of life to survive for so many centuries."

- Program Note from publisher

About the Composer

Julie Ann Giroux (pronounced Ji-ROO (as in "Google," not Ji-ROW, as in "row your boat") (b. 12 December 1961, Fairhaven, Mass.) is an American composer of orchestral, choral, chamber, and numerous concert band works.

She received her formal education at Louisiana State University and Boston University. She also studied composition with John Williams, Bill Conti, and Jerry Goldsmith.

Julie is an extremely well-rounded composer, writing works for symphony orchestra (including chorus), chamber ensembles, wind ensembles, soloists, brass and woodwind quintets and many other serious and commercial formats. Much of her early work was composing and orchestrating for film and television. Her writing credits include soundtrack score for White Men Can't Jump and the 1985 miniseries North and South. She has also arranged music for Reba McIntyre, Madonna and Michael Jackson. Ms. Giroux is a three-time Emmy Award nominee and in 1992 won an Emmy Award in the category of Outstanding Individual Achievement in Music Direction.

Ms. Giroux has an extensive list of published works for concert band and wind ensemble. She began writing music for concert band in 1983, publishing her first band work Mystery on Mena Mountain with Southern Music Company. Giroux left Los Angeles in 1997 to compose for concert bands and orchestras full time, publishing exclusively with Musica Propria. In 2004 Gia Publications, Inc. published the book entitled Composers on Composing for Band, Volume Two which features a chapter written by Julie Giroux. Her insightful chapter gives a down-to-earth description which is often humorous of her personal methods and techniques for composing for bands. In 2009 Giroux, an accomplished pianist, performed her latest work, Cordoba for Solo Piano and Concert Band, in five U.S. cities and attended the premier of Arcus IX, a work for solo F tuba and concert band, at Blinn College in Brenham, Texas.

Her 2009 film and documentary orchestrations and compositions include the ongoing project "Call for Green China" which, primarily funded by the World Bank, was recorded, performed and broadcast live in china in 2007. In 2009 the project was extended with new musical material, recorded and set to tour seven cities in China where the show was performed live.

Giroux is a member of American Bandmasters Association (ABA), the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP, and an honorary brother of the Omicron Chapter of Kappa Kappa Psi at West Virginia University. She was initiated into the fraternity on April 2, 2005.

The Raptor Rides the Whale - Andrew David Perkins (ASCAP)

About the Music

The Raptor Rides the Whale is an aggressive, driving, modal (Phrygian) work that heavily features the percussion section, utilizing multiple special effects. Inspired by the artwork of Stirling Prentice a.k.a. Winged Beast, the piece is a metaphoric manifestation of the imagined melee between these two iconic creatures. Perhaps, like a discarded chapter from a Michael Crichton novel, the outcome of this improbable rendezvous would be best left to our imaginations. I humbly offer the soundtrack. 

- Program Note by composer

Commissioned in 2018 by a consortium of music educators dedicated to promoting the composition of wind band literature.

- Program Note from score

About the Composer

An ASCAP Plus Award recipient and GRAMMY nominated music educator, conductor, and composer, Andrew David Perkins (b.1978) holds a specialist certificate in Orchestration from the Berklee College of Music, a Master of Music degree from the University of Michigan, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Michigan State University. An active composer, conductor and educator, Perkins is a regular guest clinician nationally and abroad. He especially enjoys writing music for younger musicians, on which he has focused for the past few years including commissions from the Flint Youth Symphony Orchestra, the Conservatoire de Limonest, and a variety of consortia. Mr. Perkins spent several seasons as a marching member and conductor of the Phantom Regiment Drum & Bugle Corps from Rockford, Illinois, and has served as an adjunct professor of Film Scoring at Madonna University in Livonia, Michigan. He is currently the Director of Instrumental Music and Music Technology at Fenton High School in Fenton, Michigan, and additionally serves as the Music Director and Conductor of the Fenton Community Orchestra. Mr. Perkins is a member of the American Society of Composers Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) and his music is exclusively published through APOLLO STUDIOS (ASCAP).