Children’s Concert – The Colors of Music
Join us at the Americal Civic Center in Wakefield for our fall Children’s Concert. This year’s program is called The Colors of Music. And, as always, there will be a drawing for one child to conduct Stars & Stripes Forever. There will also be an instrument petting zoo, giving children the opportunity to learn about the different instruments of the band.
Program Music (in Alphabetical Order)
Amparito Roca – Jaime Texidor
Amparito Roca is the name of a piece of music composed in 1925 by Spanish musician and composer Jaime Teixidor (1884–1957) who named it after one of his piano students, then 12-year-old Amparito Roca (1912–1993).
It was first performed in September 1925 in the theater El Siglo in the town of Carlet where the composer lived at the time. It is a pasodoble and one of the better known pieces of Spanish music around the world (source)
Blue Tango – Leroy Anderson
Blue Tango is an instrumental composition by Leroy Anderson, written for orchestra in 1951 and published in 1952. It was later turned into a popular song with lyrics by Mitchell Parish. Numerous artists have since covered Blue Tango.
– Program Note from Wikipedia
Cajun Folk Songs – Frank Ticheli
This colorful work in the rich Cajun folksong tradition is treated with authenticity and sensitivity in this two-movement work, which employs varied instrumental textures, exciting percussion parts and fascinating contrapuntal writing. The folk songs highlighted are La Belle Et Le Capitaine and Belle. (source)
Clowns – Philip Parker
As the title suggests, this is a piece in the style of a gallop that depicts the frantic pace of clowns running around performing their zany antics at the circus. While the piece uses a vague tonal center in B-flat, the freely tonal melodies and harmonies are as unpredictable as the clowns themselves. (source)
Down a Country Lane – Aaron Copland
Copland enjoyed the challenge of composing for young performers. Life Magazine commissioned a piano piece and featured it in a 1962 issue of the magazine with photographs and a homespun article that explained, “Copland’s Down a Country Lane fills a musical gap: It is among the few modern pieces specially written for young piano students by a major composer.” Copland was quoted: “Even third-year students will have to practice before trying it in public.” (source)
Florentiner March – Julius Fucik Op 214
The Florentiner March, Grande marcia Italiana, was written in 1907 by the prolific Bohemian (Czech) composer and bandmaster Julius Fučik, in Budapest, the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This seemingly incongruous set of particulars can be explained by the musical trends of the time – many European composers were writing in styles that implied the exoticism of other lands, including Russia, Spain, and in this case, Italy. The Florentiner bears the subtitle Grande marcia Italiana, with the main title giving homage to Florence, Italy; Fučik’s original title for the march was, in fact, “La Rosa di Toscana.” (source)
Highlights from FROZEN – Arranged by Sean O’Loughlin
Hailed as one of Disney’s best animated films ever, Frozen is quickly establishing itself as a classic with a heartwarming story, stunning visuals and magnificent songs. This impressive concert medley features Vuelie, Do You Want to Build a Snowman?, For the First Time in Forever, and Let It Go. (source)
Meet the Band – Sandy Feldstein & Larry Clark
Meet the Band is a musical journey through the instruments of the band with narrator “Sam the Snare Drum.” “Sam” introduces potential instrumentalists to the unique sounds of flutes, clarinets, saxophones, trumpets, trombones, the percussion section and everything in between. The grand finale gives the whole band a chance to shine in this excellent recruitment tool. (source)
Polly Oliver – Thomas R. Root
Sweet Polly Oliver is an English broadside ballad (Roud #367), traceable from 1840 or earlier. It is also known as “Pretty Polly Oliver” and has several variant sets of lyrics, set to a single anonymous melody. It is one of the best known of a number of folk songs describing women disguising themselves as men to join the army to be with their lovers.
Thomas Root wrote a symphonic band arrangement and Benjamin Britten wrote an arrangement for voice and piano. (source)
A String Of Pearls – Jerry Gray
One of the classic swing tunes from the Big Band era, John Wasson brings the sound of the Glenn Miller Orchestra to the concert stage with this powerful and swingin’ arrangement. (source)
The Wrong Note Rag – Leonard Bernstein
This instrumental version of Wrong Note Rag, arranged for wind band by Ted Ricketts, is from the 1953 Broadway musical Wonderful Town with lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and music by Leonard Bernstein. The musical, set in 1935, tells the story of two sisters from Ohio, Ruth and Eileen Sherwood, who come to New York City aspiring to become a writer and an actress, respectively. Wrong Note Rag is a production number sung by Ruth and Eileen and is the climax of the musical.
To achieve the whimsical and quirky mood that is Wrong Note Rag, Bernstein uses the syncopated or “ragged” rhythms of ragtime music, a genre of American music popular in the early 1900s. Bernstein not only captures the essence of that style but embellishes it with even more complex rhythmic entanglements. To further create the desired mood, Bernstein incorporates dissonance in the form of a “wrong” note which creates great comic effect when Eileen and Ruth sing the song at a jazz nightclub in the musical’s rollicking finale. (source)
