Under a Winter Sky

This lovely ballad about the winter season is perfect for teaching blend, balance, and phrasing to developing band students. With soaring melodies, beautiful harmonic accompaniments, and gentle percussion this is a true depiction of the scenery of a windless and clear winter morning. Use the many inner melodies to develop the always important skill of listening while also introducing the lyrical ballad style to your performers.

Unease - Nicholas Costanza

Unicorn Ranch

Full of interesting rhythmic patterns that evoke a horse-like "galloping" feel, this gently dissonant composition is a great way to work on ensemble blend and listening skills. Written at one tempo throughout, it's an easy way to introduce the concept of syncopation while also developing cut-time playing skills. Perfect as a challenging contest, festival or concert selection for younger bands or a lighter selection for more advanced groups.

Unleashed

Peter Terry's Unleashedmakes for an impressive concert opener that is the musical equivalent of unleashing a caged animal. The piece is exciting from start to finish, with energetic and bold material that students will love to play. Directors will also love the instrumentation flexibility that this new version offers.

Upward Bound

Upward Bound is an exciting musical experience for developing band students, offering many opportunities to practice triplets, rhythms, enharmonic note-reading, and runs that cross the break (clarinet). Written in G minor, the piece creates tension with intentional dissonance, encouraging purposeful listening and careful tuning within the ensemble.

Valley of Shadows

Starting strong with a simple melody and active percussion, this piece about the adventure of walking through a scary forested valley introduces programmatic music to students in a fun and entertaining way. Along the journey, they will encounter a snake represented by a ratchet and contemporary techniques like dissonance, shouting, and clapping. With active percussion and plenty of rhythmic challenges this piece, is appropriate for a 2nd year concert or advanced first year band.

Valor

Vanguard

Vanguard is an energetic piece that shifts between dynamic brass fanfare gestures and sweeping melodic lines. With his experience as a music educator, composer Chris Bernotas consistently provides bands with bold and beautiful compositions that lift the energy of all who play and hear his pieces. Vanguard is the perfect concert opener for your next concert.

Veni, Veni Emmanuel

Already one of the most popular choral settings in the Carl Fischer Music catalog, Michael John Trotta's setting of Veni, Veni Emmanuel has now been skillfully transcribed by James Meredith for band. Trotta's setting of this seminal carol juxtaposes the old and new together in a refreshingly different approach to the song. The piece can work with band alone or with the popular choral setting. It is sophisticated enough for high school groups to put together quickly and can also work well with middle school groups.

Venture

Venture is an exciting overture-style composition for concert band. A venture is an undertaking involving uncertainty and the possibility of risk or danger. The music reflects this definition and has many of the qualities of great film music. Powerful when needed and sensitive at times to provide contrast, the cumulative result is a dramatic addition to concert band literature. One of Sean O'Loughlin's best to date!