Spring Concert 2024

Join us at the Galvin for our Spring Concert!
Saturday, March 23, 2024 @ 7:30pm
Galvin Middle School, Wakefield, MA

The program includes:

• Cyprian Suite – Carol Barnett
  • The Cyprian Suite is one of a series of works written following a trip to Cyprus in 1999. Each of its four movements is based on a Cypriot folk song. The first, Servikos, is an instrumental dance in Serbian style, often played on the violin. In the second, Lullaby, a mother asks Saint Marina to take her baby to the world of sweet dreams and bring it safely back. She entrusts her baby to sleep, which will take her child and give it back to her grown up like a cypress tree, with branches extending from East to West. In the third, Exomológhisis, a man who had a lot of love affairs went to his priest to confess. The priest advised him to start a new life and stop having affairs. The man replied, “Father, if you deny the Holy Communion and the Divine Service, then I will deny love.” In the last song, the singer complains, “I loved her from the bottom of my heart, but she was indifferent, and I have suffered.”
  • (From: https://www.windrep.org/Cyprian_Suite)
• Elegy for the USS Arizona – Larry MacTaggart
  • A moving musical tribute that will enhance any concert or festival performance. Beginning with the solemn sounds of snare drum, this wonderfully written piece honors the memory of the sailors of the U.S.S. Arizona with the familiar sounds of Eternal Father Strong to Save. Whether used as part of veteran ceremonies or in concerts, this moving work will inspire and impress all who hear it.
  • (From: https://www.jwpepper.com/Elegy-for-the-U.S.S.-Arizona/10276473.item)
• French Impressions – Guy Wolfenden
  • This work is inspired by four paintings by the French painter Georges Seurat, but does not attempt to recreate his pointillist technique in musical terms. The first movement, Parade, contrasts the strange gas-lit world of “La Parade de Cirque: Invitation to the Sideshow,” which features a sinister-looking trombone player and his ghostly acolytes, with the cool detached stance of that great masterpiece “A Bathing Place: Asnières.” The second movement, Can Can, recreates the world of two other paintings: “Le Cirque” and “Le Chahut,” which depicts a curiously stylised Can Can in full swing, accompanied by a pit orchestra. The phrase “faire du chahut” means to make a racket!
  • (From: https://www.windrep.org/French_Impressions)
• From The Delta – William Grant Still
  • From the Delta was composed in 1945 for the Goldman Band of New York City. Its three movements (Work Song; Spiritual; Dance) were meant to capture the essence of what life was like on the Mississippi Delta. Work Song illustrates a chain gang singing their way through days of hard labor. Spiritual is a more somber movement, meant to convey the pain felt by African Americans living in slavery. The final movement, Dance is the liveliest of the three movements and paints a portrait of friends coming together to celebrate one another in spite of their daily hardships.
  • (From: https://www.grothmusic.com/p-126007-from-the-delta-concert-band.aspx
• La Mezquita De Cordoba – Julie Giroux
  • La Mezquita de Cordoba opens with the destruction of the original Christian church in 716 A.D. and proceeds as a musical celebration of La Mezquita and its multi-cultural, religious and artistic accomplishments.”
  • (From: https://concordband.blogspot.com/2020/03/la-mezquita-de-cordoba.html)
• Manhattan Beach – John Phillip Souza
  • Manhattan Beach is a community in lower Brooklyn, New York City, at the eastern end of the peninsula that once was the island called Coney Island.  (California also has a town called Manhattan Beach, near Los Angeles.  But it is unrelated to the story of Sousa’s march.)
  • Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn, in 1879 Click to enlarge (4566×1655, 2.8 MB)
  • In the 1890’s, the area was a popular upper middle class summer resort.  The resort had been developed in 1877 by Long Island Railroad magnate Austin Corbin (1827-1896). 
  • Beginning in summer, 1893, one of the main attractions at Manhattan Beach was a series of concerts by John Philip Sousa’s band.  In that year, Sousa wrote “Manhattan Beach March” as a theme song for his summer concerts.
  • (From: https://www.daisyfield.com/music/htm/Sousa/mbeach.htm)
• Mannin Veen – Haydn Wood
  • Originally published in 1933, this outstanding tone poem, based on four folk songs from the Isle of Man, is an outstanding addition to any band library. Beginning with a plaintive melody in the Dorian mode, then going into a “fiddle tune,” a very lyrical melody and then a hymn, this is a superbly written work that is most worthy of performance.
• Opening Night On Broadway – Arranged by Michael Brown
  • A new generation of musicals is hitting the Great White Way, and is resulting in a renewed vitality in the music written for the stage. Here is a dynamic collection of future classics in a sparkling and entertaining medley. Includes: Springtime for Hitler (“The Producers”); The “Avenue Q” Theme; Always Look on the Bright Side of Life (“Spamalot”); For Good (“Wicked”) and Circle of Life (“The Lion King”).
  • (From: https://www.penders.com/p-18479-opening-night-on-broadway.aspx)