Results
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£80.99
The Cat's Pajamas - Pierre la Plante
During the Jazz age of the 1920's, "the cat's pajamas" referred to anything special, unique or "cool." Musically speaking, the image of a cat in pajamas might suggest combining low clarinets (reminiscent of Prokofiev's use of a clarinet to describe the cat in "Peter And The Wolf") with a jaunty little tune in ragtime style, adding a few instrumental "meows," and you have (what else?): "The Cat's Pajamas: A Felicitous Feline Ragtime Novelty!" Audiences and performers will love it from head to tail!
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£91.99
Changes Ahead - Sherburne
What starts out as a fanfare quickly becomes variations on the opening themes. As the title suggests, those themes are musical foreshadowing for the "Changes Ahead". With effective use of mixed meters, changing keys and rhythms there is an excitement that builds off of otherwise simple melodies. In the middle section comes a lyrical contrast with a sense of anticipation that the "changed" themes are coming back to a powerful ending, where all the themes combine. "Changes Ahead" showcases each section of the band, but more importantly it will challenge them to listen to other themes and compliment them. With lots of percussion, dramatic brass, flowing winds this piece creates a bold musical experience for the band and the audience.
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£54.99
Jolly Ol' St. Stickolas - Phillips
What do you get when you combine a happy Calypso feel, your mallet percussionists, and a favorite Christmas tune? Jolly Ol' St. Stickolas, of course! Starting off with a cool Calypso groove, the mallets soon play "Up On The Housetop" with a light accompaniment from the rest of the band. A touch of Pachebel's "Canon in D" is juxtaposed over St. Nick, resulting in a fun mallet feature that's fun for the entire band. Don't miss this one!
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£97.50American Folk Fantasy
American Folk Fantasy is a medley in overture style, which includes three well-known American folk songs. The first section utilizes 'Round Her Neck She Wears a Yellow Ribbon in an up-beat, march-like rendition. The second tune,All the Pretty Little Horses (Hushabye), provides a lyrical touch to the middle section. What follows is a stirring setting of the famous Shaker melody, Simple Gifts, which ultimately rushes to a grandiose conclusion. (4:45)
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£69.99
An Irish Lullaby - Stephen Bulla
What can be more charming than a comely Irish folk melody? This is music that allows the band to play in the rubato style, with much room for expression. Found in an old British publication and simply called "Irish Air," this endearing arrangement is a rhapsodic treatment that takes fragments of the melody and develops them into a large symphonic work. The freedom of tempi allows you to work with your band in a sensitively conducted way that only a beautiful piece like this will allow.There is always room on a concert program for at least one lush, melodic contrast piece. Perhaps this one is for you. It's so difficult to describe a thing of real beauty. Please listen tothe demo recording and hear it for yourself.
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£64.99
Life Dances - William Himes
Who but William Himes could have composed this one? Filled with humor, pathos, excitement and surprise, LIFE DANCES is a brilliant and rhythmic overture for the adventurous band. The dauntless contemporary sounds of the opening are contrasted by an almost Medeival character. You'll traverse many intriguing and unpredictable paths before dazzling rhythmic interplay drives the band to the astonishing ending.Like life, when you first open this "box of chocolates" you truly won't know what wonderful treats are in store. As a director, if you've ever gotten a bit weary of the "same old same old," you've come to the right place for a change. This one is sure to reinvigorate youand your band as you discover together all the surprises life has to offer. A celebration!
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£137.99Odyssee - Jan Bosveld
The Odyssee tells the story of Odysseus, the undaunted hero. In times long ago the blind poet Homer wrote this famous epic. The "Odyssey" follows the "Iliad", the story of the bloody war between the Greek and the Trojans. This battle endsafter ten years thanks to the Odysseys famous trick. the Trojan Horse. The Odyssey is not a war epic, but a story about perseverance, loyalty, adventure, and the survival instinct of its ingenious hero. In The Odyssey, Homer describes howOdysseus, the king of Ithaca, had to endure another ten years of affliction after the ten years of war in Troy before he could finally return to his home land. During those years, his wife, Penelope, had to try and keep her many admirers away.These men not only wanted het hand but also the kingship. To prove her husbands worth, she played a trick: "As soon as I have finished weaving this shroud for my father-in-law, Laertes, I will choose one of you to become my husband", she promisedthem. But during the night, she secretly loosened what she had woven during the day, prolonging the time until Odysseus would finally return. After twenty long years, when he finally stood at the door, she wondered: Is this really my husband? Ishe an imposter? Cunningly, she asked him to move the bed, because only she and her husband know that the bed was immovable and was build around an old three trunk! Odysseus was deeply moved: this really was his wife, his Penelope! Nearly threethousands years later, the loyalty and strength of this character, and all the dangerous adventures that Odysseus survived thanks to courage and intelligence, still moves us today. Odyssee by Jan Bosveld is not just an adventure story, butrather a characteristic piece in which memories of Homers story can be heard. The composition opens with a firm, stirring theme describing our hero, Odysseus, in detail: This man is not to be taken lightly. The further development of thisshort introduction completes this character sketch: trustworthy, perseverant, and a genius. After that we can picture Odysseus on the lonely beach of Ogygia. Do the trumpets depict his memories of the war of Troy? Does he think of his wife, as werecognise the weaving loom of Penelope in the murmuring eighth? In the solemn, plaintive part that follows, we can imagine Penelope feeling lonely, sitting in the womens room with her servants.One of the girls plays the harp, but that does notclear the sombre atmosphere. Then we can imagine seeing the sorceress Circe, who changed Odysseus men into swine. After she gives a simple magic sign something follows that reminds us of the sound of pigs grunting. Then the Odysseus theme resounds:the hero comes to savi his comrades. Assisted by Hermes, he forces Circe to lift the spell. The piece ends the same way as it began, with an animated theme: Odysseus is still the same, undefeated and not to be taken lighty!
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£57.50Grandmother Song
Grandmother Song is an introduction to the Mohican tradition of sung syllables, or what Native Americans call vocables. Combining them with traditional wood flute songs, composer Brent Michael Davids offers a fresh look at the sound of Native American songs. Band instruments are performed less as musical instruments and more as talking sticks, singing reeds, rustling winds and shooting thunder. Through this beautiful ballad, students are given the materials to understand how Native Americans celebrate the world around them through the blending of words and song. (Includes score and parts.) BandQuest, an exciting series of new music and accompanying curricula for band, is a program published by the American Composers Forum. The series was started as a response to feedback from music educators that there is a pressing need for new, fresh band music. The heart of this program is new works written by a diverse group of leading American composers who have created challenging pieces that are a true departure from standard middle school repertoire. Every BandQuest project includes a residency component in which the composer works collaboratively with a middle school as they create their new piece. Many BandQuest pieces are accompanied by an interdisciplinary curriculum designed to assist students as they learn the music and to integrate each piece with non-music studies. Learn more on YouTube. Visit www.bandquest.org to learn more about this innovative series, and email [email protected] to request a free downloadable audio catalog.
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£98.20Space Lab - Giuseppe Ratti
A long pedal-note of evanescent chords, based on empty parallel fifths, announces the theme;flutes and reed instruments exploit some almost imperceptible micro-fragments, supported by muted trumpets, creating what is an almost surreal and spatial atmosphere. This was Giuseppe Ratti's starting point for his "Space Lab", a laboratory of sounds and, later (when the main theme is taken up once more), of rhythms. Although it may sound complicated, this piece is ultimately based on a single motif: the descending fourth played on the second beat by the woodwinds. In this piece, Giuseppe Ratti, with his usual pallet of clear, transparent colours at hand, appropriate for the general public, together with simple, effective themes, has sought to experiment with new atmospheres and rhythms. First of all we hear the entire theme in the Allegro. Then the rhythm changes in a simple but at the same time complex manner: almost a genetic mutation. The part leading up to the final Lento flows smoothly for the listener but requires great skill and experience on the part of those performing it. In the final lento the main theme reappears in all its simplicity and sincerity, purified of all contrasts. A metaphor for a life that leads us towards unimaginable frontiers but which, in the end, always brings us back to the point from where we started.
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£75.50The Dream of Tiberius - David Campo
The Roman Emperor Tiberius was born in 42 BCE to Tiberius Claudius Nero and Livia Drusilla, both descendants of prestigious political families, at a time when Rome was undergoing significant political upheaval. Julius Caesar had begun a brutal civil war in 49 BCE to end Rome's rule as a Republic and consolidate his power as supreme ruler. Following Caeser's assassination in 44 BCE, Tiberius' father backed the forces wishing to return Rome to a Republic, but they were defeated by Caesarian loyalists led by Caeser's heir Octavian. As a result, Tiberius' early life was spent on the run and in political exile with his parents. In 27 BCE, Octavian would become the first Emporer of Rome and assume the name Augustus. Augustus forced Tiberius' parents to divorce and took Tiberius' mother as his new bride, separating the family and forcing Tiberius to live with his father. Upon his father's death, Tiberius went to live with his mother and Emporer Augustus, a situation Tiberius found extremely uncomfortable but one over which he had no control. Having been adopted by the Emperor, Tiberius assumed the military and political life thrust upon him. He proved to be an outstanding military and political leader, and with his marriage to Vipsania Agrippina his life took on a heretofore unknown stability. However, Augustus would intervene in Tiberius' life once more, forcing him to abandon his happy marriage and take Augustus' daughter Julia (Tiberius' step sister) as his new wife. This arrangement, while securing Tiberius' place as Augustus' heir and ensuring he would one day be Emperor of Rome, was disastrous. Julia's drunken licentiousness was a constant source of scandal and embarrassment for Tiberius (and her father, the Emperor) and she was eventually exiled by her father Augustus. Tiberius was named Emperor of Rome upon the death of Augustus in AD 14, assuming his position as the most powerful man on Earth. However, no matter how powerful he had become, Tiberius never felt as if he had ever had any control over his life, having been manipulated from childhood through adulthood by the whims of Augustus. As Emperor, he soon became disgusted with the political intrigue of the Roman Senate and by AD 26 left Rome and took up residence on the island of Capri, where he lived out the rest of his life. History does not regard Tiberius fondly and by all accounts towards the end of his reclusive life on Capri, he had become a miserable, sick and mentally unstable old man reveling in debauchery and cruelty. It is also informative to note that he was Emperor of Rome when Jesus of Nazareth was crucified, and while there is no indication that Tiberius was even aware of the existence of Jesus, as Emperor he was responsible for the appointment of Pontius Pilate as Governor of Judea. Even considering this, it is difficult to look on the life of the Emperor Tiberius and not feel some sympathy and pity. It's in this spirit that I composed "The Dream of Tiberius." I imagine the man sitting in thoughtful seclusion on the beautiful island of Capri imagining what his life might have happily been had not power been thrust upon him: husband, father and humble servant of the people.
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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