Grade 4
5.5 minutes
Composed for the 2025 Department of Defense Educational Activity (DoDEA) Europe Honor Band Festival; premiered March 13, 2025 in Bingen, Germany with the composer conducting (posted here; piece begins at 17:20)
I was delighted to be asked to compose a piece for this honor band comprised of kids from schools all over Europe and parts of the Middle East. Honor bands are a great experience for everyone involved: the students, the teachers, the administrators, and the guest clinicians. This one was particularly meaningful as the students were entirely military dependents, and military brats are THE BEST.
I love honor bands! It’s because of some excellent honor band experiences that I even considered music as a viable career. Honor bands embody the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts by uniting skilled musicians, each providing an essential piece of the puzzle. While each player is talented, their combined sound creates a richer, more dynamic musical experience than any solo performance could achieve.
Knowing that the students selected for this band would have time to study their music for a few weeks before the event, I tried to write every part in a way that didn’t give away what the whole would sound like. In other words, I broke up the “pieces” of this music and shared them between instruments and sometimes within sections so that the piece truly could not have worked without every individual musician’s contribution.
The result, I hope, is a piece that exemplifies cooperation, attention to detail, and careful listening. It is ideally played with a well-balanced ensemble with complete instrumentation (like an honor band!), but there are extensive cues to cover the traditionally tougher parts like double reeds.