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£30.00
Red Hot Pepper Stomp - Jelly Roll Morton
Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe, professionally known asJelly Roll Morton, was an Americanragtimeandearly jazzpianist, band leader andcomposer who started his career inNew Orleans,Louisiana. Widely recognised as a pivotal figure in earlyjazz, Morton is perhaps most notable as jazz's first arranger, proving that a genre rooted in improvisation could retain its essential spiritand characteristics when notated. His composition "Jelly Roll Blues" was the first published jazz composition in 1915. Morton is also notable for writing suchstandardsas "KingPorter Stomp", "Wolverine Blues", "Black Bottom Stomp", and "I Thought I HeardBuddy BoldenSay". Notorious for his arrogance and self-promotion, Morton claimed to have invented jazz outright in 1902, much to the derisionof fellow musicians and the critics. At the age of fourteen, Morton began working as a piano player in a brothel (or, as it was referred to back then, a sporting house). In that atmosphere,he often sang smutty lyrics and took the nickname "Jelly Roll". While working there,he was living with his religious, church-going great-grandmother; who he convinced that he worked as a night watchman in a barrel factory. After Morton's grandmother found out that he was playing jazz in a local brothel, she kicked him out of her house and told him that "devil music" would surely bring about his downfall. Born in downtown New Orleans,Louisiana, his exact birth date differs depending to whichever source you want to believe; his half-sisters claimed he was born in September 1885 but his World War 1 draft card showed September 1884 and his California death certificate listed his birth as September 1889. He died in 1941 in Los Angeles.
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£25.95
Hymn for Africa - Peter Meechan
Part of the Brass Band Aid SeriesBrass Band Aid is a Charitable Organisation formed by members of Stanhope Silver Band, based in the North of England. From an original aim to raise awareness of the Make Poverty History campaign in their local area, a brass band CD recording was planned. The initiative took on a whole new dimension when the collection of local bands performing on CD were then joined by, what is now known as, The Brass Band Aid Celebrity Band, made up of many of the top brass musicians in the country.Following the success of this initial project the Celebrity Band has come together again to record a new CD - "Into Africa". This is a compilation of pieces especially written for the recording by some of the most esteemed brass band writers of today. 'Hymn for Africa' is one such piece, generously contributed by Peter Meechan in support of the ongoing work of the charity."Hymn for Africa is inspired by the the release of Nelson Mandela in the early 1990's and the effect it had upon not only South Africa, but all over the continent of Africa, as well as the World as a whole. The fact that one man can achieve this with peace and great dignity will always be an inspiration, not only to me, but many, many millions of humans around the globe.sense of dignity and peace the composer . A simple 8 bar melody, first heard on an unaccompanied flugel horn at the beginning, is the basis of the composition. A drone is then added, before a chorale, and finally a rousing climax when the percussion and full band enter. The piece ends at it began, with a peaceful, unaccompanied, flugel solo." (Peter Meechan).All sets sold raise money for Brass Band Aid - a charity The Music Company has continued to actively support since 25.
In Stock: Estimated dispatch 3-5 working days
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£30.00
Roots - Lucy Pankhurst
Commissioned by Katrina Marzella in 2008, this modern 'duet' for Baritone and Euphonium soloists with brass band accompaniment has been inspired by 'nature and environment' as its primary muse. The music takes the listener through 7 stages of environmental atmosphere, in its combination of sounds and effects. It is a very uplifting work and with the back-story in mind (see programme notes below), it makes for an incredibly effective concert feature.Programme notes from the composer, Lucy Pankhurst:There are 7 main sections in the piece :RainGerminationGrowthTransionSunshineRainstormRestThe work begins with Rain, symbolised by the rainstick and 'rain sounds' in the brass , which allows the themes to germinate. The 'roots' of the music themselves, are firmly established in the tonic (root Eb) and 5ths in the low brass, from which the solo lines eventually grow, using triads and 5ths.During Growth, the solo baritone and euphonium begin with separate melodies which begin to twist around each other (much like tree roots), interlocking to produce harmonies and counterpoint, complimenting one another and firmly keeping the music in Eb major. Muted cornets and trombones continue to play overlapping semiquavers, reflecting the raindrops as they fall from the trees and leaves.A brief interlude, featuring brass sextet drives the music back to its Germination stage - here, named Transion, as it grows once more, evolving into something new. The Sunshine section is a dance. Moving rapidly through different keys, the warm sunlight catches on the dewy foliage, creating dazzling moments of clarity and beauty.However, the change in conditions also lead to brief moments of uncertainty, as the various creatures tentatively reappear from their shelter to bask as the earth is warmed. Birdsong can be heard in the solo lines as the entire band join in the celebrations.The jollity does not last long, however, as a Rainstorm, more violent than the last , ensues - stopping the dance in its tracks. The tam-tam and bass drum signify thunder, crashing into the music abruptly. However, the music still survives and re-emerges from the storm, delicately but securely establishing itself into a new key (C major), before softly concluding with the two soloists in rhythmic unison as the rain subsides and the world is at Rest.
In Stock: Estimated dispatch 3-5 working days
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£40.00
Dragons' Rise - Matthew Hall
Dragons' Rise was commissioned by the Tredegar Town Band in July 2008 for their CD recording Spirit of the Valleys, to represent the band beginning their resurrection from a difficult time in the bands history back through to becoming on of the best bands in the world. It was premiered by the Tredegar Town Band at the National Eisteddfod contest in Cardiff in August 2008, performed live on national television, where the band were victorious.Dragons' Rise was the first piece composed by Matthew as the bands new composer-in-residence. Subsequent pieces have included Legends of Cyfarthfa and Nightingale Dances, both winners of the Cyril Beere award for Best New Composition at Brass in Concert, The Smile and Activate.
Estimated dispatch 5-7 working days
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£33.00
Lux Aeterna - Harper, P
The title Lux Aeterna (Eternal Light) can be interpreted on a number of levels. Musically it has a rather mystical feel to it, and the single note with which the piece begins continues uninterrupted throughout, like an inextinguishable flame, or a constant source of hope. There are lyrical and song-like solo lines for cornet, flugel and euphonium. In a recent review Paul Hindmarsh described the piece as a touching new work by Philip Harper that would have got my vote for best new work for its technical ingenuity if not its 'wow factor'.Listen to Cory BandCourtesy of World of Brass
In Stock: Estimated dispatch 1-3 working days
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£54.99
U.S. City Trip - Andrew Watkin
Andrew Watkin takes us on a three-movement musical journey in U.S. City Trip. Each movement explores a world famous street in three different American cities. Swing, blues and rock styles accompany us as we visit the theatres on Broadway in New York, the clubs on Rampart Street in New Orleans' French Quarter and the casinos on the Las Vegas Strip.
Estimated dispatch 5-14 working days
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£44.99
Ceremonial Fanfare - Johan de Meij
The Ceremonial Fanfare was originally written for orchestral brass and percussion, commissioned by The Orchestra Osaka Symphoniker from Osaka, Japan. The world premiere performance took place on April 12, 2005 at The Symphony Hall in Osaka, conducted by maestro Heiichiro Ohyama.In April 2009, the combined brass sections of the New York Philharmonic and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra gave an impressive performance in New York City. The concert commemorated the Henry Hudson Quadricentennial and 400 years of friendship between The United States and The Netherlands.This version for brass band was written at the request of EBBC, the European Brass Band Contest 2012in Rotterdam, to serve as the opening fanfare of the festival.
Estimated dispatch 5-14 working days
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£23.50
A Brussels Requiem - SCORE ONLY - Bert Appermont
The attacks in Brussels on 22 March 2016 created a shockwave throughout Belgium and the rest of the world. Equally, the attacks in Paris and Nice led to great public indignation, fear and disbelief. What has happened to the western world? Have our cultures grown apart to such an extent that we do not understand each other anymore? Bert Appermont's intention was to voice certain emotions that these acts of terror have caused: particularly fear, grief, anger, and helplessness. He uses the French children's song Au Claire de la Lune as a connecting thread throughout the work. This piece is also about hope and faith in another world, and is meant to pay homage to all victims, resulting in a dignified remembrance. The musical development is presented in four through-composed parts, titled Innocence, In Cold Blood, In Memoriam - We Shall Rise Again and A New Day. This work was commissioned by the Brassband Oberosterreich (Brass Band Upper Austria) to be played at the European Brass Band Championships 2017.
Estimated dispatch 5-14 working days
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£30.00
strange geometry
Descriptionstrange geometrywas commissioned by Morgan Griffiths and the Hammonds Saltaire Band for their performance at the Brass in Concert Championships of 2015.As a bit of a space/sci-fi geek, as well as a musician, two events during the summer of 2015 had a particular effect on me. The first was the tragic early death in a plane crash of the famous film composer James Horner. Horner's music, particularly in films like 'Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan', 'Avatar', 'Apollo 13' and even his debut in Roger Corman's 1980 budget film 'Battle Beyond the Stars', defined for a generation the sound of sci-fi at the cinema. Along with John Williams he created the vocabulary for those who wish to express other-worldly wonder in music and his inventive talent will be much missed in an industry where originality has become something of a dirty word in recent years.The second event was the epic flyby of Pluto by the NASA New Horizons spacecraft. There are many reasons to find this mission inspiring - for example, the scientists and engineers behind it created a craft that has travelled at 37,000 mph for nine years and three billion miles to arrive within seventy-two seconds of the predicted time for the flyby. That they achieved this with such accuracy is an outstanding tribute to humanity's ingenuity and insatiable curiosity. However, the most exciting aspect of the mission was the clear, high resolution pictures of this unthinkably remote and inhospitable world beamed back to mission control. The best previous image of Pluto was an indistinct fuzzy blob - suddenly we could see mountains made of ice, glaciers of methane and carbon monoxide and nitrogen fog - features previously unimagined on a world thought to be a slightly dull ball of cold rock. The BBC's venerable astronomy programme 'The Sky at Night' waxed lyrical about these newly discovered features, referring to "the surprising discoveries of mountains and strange geometry on the surface of this cold distant world".I like to think that Horner would have been as inspired as I have been by this real-life science story, and this piece uses some of the vocabulary of the sci-fi movie soundtrack in a tribute to the memory of a great musician and to the inspirational geeks at NASA who have boldly taken us where no-one has gone before.Note: This work comes with a B4 portrait score. Listen to a preview and follow the music below!
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days
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£45.00
f/m
Descriptionf/m was inspired by the internet cartoon 'frequency' by the artist Randall Munroe, which can be seen atxkcd.'Frequency' displays a grid of randomly chosen statistical events which flash at the frequency of their real-time occurrence; an outwardly banal idea with surprisingly profound results. f/m (which - predictably - is short for frequency/modulation) takes a similarly random set of time/duration statistics and uses them to generate the note lengths for each instrument. The first four statistics (and the first brass instrument entries) are derived from physical science. The next eight are all related to the natural world. The final ten, for which the cornets are used, represent contemporary human activity. The percussion instruments maintain a "tick and chime" throughout the work. To view a PDF preview of the score click here.The statistics used are as follows, indicated by numbers in brackets in the score at the first iteration of each one:Lightning strikes the earth 100 times per secondThe first pulsar ever discovered, PSR1919+21, pulses once every 1.337 secondsThere are approximately 10 supernovae every 0.95 secondsEvery 0.6 seconds the entire solar system moves 100 miles around the galactic centreEvery 4.1 seconds a 70 kg human emits 1000 gamma rays due to naturally occurring potassiumA blue whale's heart beats once every 6.67 secondsA hedgehog's heart beats 300/min or 5 times a secondEvery 2 seconds the net population of the world increases by 5There is one birth every 0.24 secondsThere is one death 0.56 seconds5.14 people die of malaria every minute ( one every 11.67 seconds)10 kilotonnes of polar ice are lost on average every 1.4 seconds.Walmart's takes in sales revenue of $10,000 every 1.4 secondsEvery 3 seconds there are 60,000 plastic bags used in US supermarketsEvery 0.72 seconds the world uses 500 tonnes of paperEvery 7.65 seconds, South Korea builds a carEvery 1.75 seconds, China builds a carEvery 5.8 seconds, Germany builds a carEvery 4.7 seconds, the USA builds a truckTwo commercial airline flights take off every 1.86 secondsMacdonalds serves 300 burgers every 4 seconds and feeds 787 people per secondStarbucks uses 3 gallons of milk every secondPerformance Notes:All entries are cued by the conductor at his/her discretion. There is no specified minimum or maximum time between entries and no specified overall duration; the times between each new entry do not have to be consistent unless the conductor wishes them to be so. However each player should be allowed time to complete at least one iteration of their note, and preferably to become comfortable with their place in the overall texture - one of the aims of the work is try present dissonant sounds through the medium of the brass band outside the normal performance context, allowing players to find their place in a non-diatonic harmonic matrix without regard for linear motion or developmental activity. Entries should not coincide unless they align vertically on the score. While it is accepted that absolute accuracy is not possible, players should attempt to get as close as they can the the printed duration of their note, and do their best to keep that duration consistent during repetitions. Rests are indicated by empty staves. A continuous line indicates a repetition in progress.Soprano cornet will require a harmon mute. Cornet 1 and Trombone 2 require metal straight mutes. Cornets 5,7,8 and 9 require cup mutes. The work requires three percussionists, playing tubular bells, vibraphone and and egg shaker.Approximate duration 6'00" - 9'00"
Estimated dispatch 7-14 working days