Search results for: 'jan bach tuba concerto'

January Suite, for Brass Quintet, is a four movement composition displaying different moods of our coldest month.  If one lives in a warm location, this might help a person imagine January.  Although the movements all display a certain amount of minor tonality, January has many aspects to enjoy.  Usually, that enjoyment does not overshadow the hope that warmer weather will be arriving before too long. 

Musically, January Suite provides all players with interesting and integral parts, with lines being somewhat polyphonic.  The melody is distributed among the different players in each movement.  Elements of syncopation are found to some degree throughout, and the third movement has a significant use of chromaticism.  Enjoy January Suite at any time of the year!

Will work for a High School or College ensemble.

reduction with Rhythm section (recording is with wind ensemble)

The Concerto for tuba and winds is in my usual Third-Stream style, but I utilized
many new techniques for the first time in this piece. Jazz, rock, hip-hop and many kinds
of classical styles come together in the Concerto. Polymeter, improvisation and intuitive
swing notation play important roles in this piece as well as traditional four-part
counterpoint and ancient Greek form. It is simply titled Concerto in a classical fashion
but each movement has a more descriptive title.
I. Swing Low
II. Adagio
III. Cutting Contest

I utilized a customized variation on the classical concerto form: a sonata-allegro
first movement, a slow second movement and a theme and variations finale.
Philosophically, this piece explores the traditional nature of a concerto from several
different angles. The first movement explores the cooperative side of a concerto. One
Latin root of the word concerto is conserere, which means to join. The soloist and wind
ensemble cooperate to produce many layers of polymeter in Swing Low. The Latin root
certamen, on the other hand, means to fight. So while the first movement is a
cooperative effort, the third movement, Cutting Contest, explores the idea of a musical
battle between the solo tuba and the wind ensemble on a familiar tune.

On March 6th, 2012, the Concerto was premiered in Seattle. Erin Bodnar led the
University of Washington Wind Ensemble with myself soloing. The Central Washington
University Wind Ensemble then recorded it with Dean Snavely conducting.

This reduction of Concerto features two different versions of the third movement
to allow for players to navigate the virtuosic fingering acrobatics on an E-Flat or F tuba.
The solo lines at letter E were inspired by Arban’s Carnival of Venice.

Curtis Peacock
January 26, 2014

This is Øystein Baadsvik's first major work for tuba and orchestra.
Adapted for tuba and piano by Barbara York. 

"Simply gorgeous"
Dan Morgan - Musicweb International