When Elizabeth Short moved to Los Angeles in the 1940's to pursue a career in Hollywood she had dreams of becoming the next biggest movie star. However, she would only achieve fame in death.
In the evening of January 15 1947, Short's naked corpse was found in a park cut in half and drained of blood. She had been violently mutilated and a joker's smile was carved on her face. The case was nicknamed "The Black Dahlia" by the press after 1946 flim noir and her murder went on to be one of the most frightening yet confusing stories of that time.
The unsolved case and the details surrounding it have had an everlasting cultural intrigue, creating many theories and public speculation. Her life and death have been the basis of numerous books and films, and her murder is frequenctly cited as one of the most famous unsolved murders in American history.
The Black Dahlia was inspired by this very case with the piece reciprocating the thoughts and actions of the time.
The composition is a violent and uneasy piece of music, which details the murder of Elizabeth Short in her final moments.
The composition is in four sections. The first is frantic and rapid, which details the initial chase between Short and the murderer. The second is much slower in pace; representing the life and blood draining out of the 22 year old's body. The next section is based on the shocking stabs and anger from the attacker onto the body with the final section repeating earlier material, describing the vile thoughts of the villian and their sudden moment of panic.

Composition Competition

The Black Dahlia - A4 Brass Quartet

In March 1973, composer Wilfred Heaton (1918-2000) completed his best known work for brass band, Contest Music, from material sketched in the early 1950s. The work was rejected by the organisers of the National Brass Band Championships for whom Heaton had prepared it and it was not used in that competition until 1982, since when it has become one of the most cherished works of the 20th century brass band repertoire.

Heaton originally composed the three movements as separate exercises in compositional techniques. Instrumentation was not specified at that stage. He made the brass band score over 20 years after the initial composition. In later years, he observed that he was content for his band music to be rescored for other ensembles to encourage wider performances. 

With that wish in mind, Paul Hindmarsh has prepared a performing edition of Contest Music for symphony orchestra and also reimagined it for wind orchestra, reducing substantially the reliance on high brass tone. The layering of the Contest Music material is well suited to orchestral scoring.The influence of the methods of Hindemith and Walton is clear. Hindmarsh has created editions that accentuate the work's symphonic credentials as a neo-classical Sinfonietta – I. sonata allegro, II. slow cantabile, III. rondo.

This is a demo recording, made with Note Performer and East-West II sound design,
and is an authorised edition from Studio Music, under Boosey & Hawkes.



Heaton - Contest Music (Sinfonietta for wind orchestra)

A demo recording of Wilfred Heaton's brass quintet - Five Bagatelles - in a new performing edition by Paul Hindmarsh.

In 1989 Wilfred Heaton was approached by the adventurous young musicians of the Fine Arts Brass Ensemble [FAB] to write brass quintet. Heaton was composing very little by then, but had become adept at recycling his "old things" for other formats. In this instance he reworked and updated a Little Suite (1955) originally for recorder and piano. The result was a dynamic and virtuoso suite of cameos founded on baroque dance forms. 
     There was a major problem, however, in that the first trumpet part lay very high in the outer movements - rather too extended in range for B flat trumpets and a stretch for the C trumpets that Heaton writes for. After exchanges of correspondence with FAB, Heaton conceded that the piece did not come off in this format. Five Bagatelles was withdrawn before being performed. 
      Heaton left the door open for future editing, indicating that it really needed fresh eyes on it to make the necessary adjustments. In 2003 FAB's current principal trumpet Simon Lenton worked out a scheme to use piccolo trumpets where necessary and Five Bagatelles was premiered (and broadcast) in 2003 from a concert from the Chester Summer Music Festival. 
      However, the finale in particular remained problematic. In 2025, short after completing his biography of Heaton, Paul Hindmarsh returned to the piece to create a new performing edition, easing the extremes of register in the final movement with some re-voicing down an octave. In order to support the remaining exposed high lines, he restored some of the textural detail Heaton from the original version.

This is not the Fine Arts Brass! It is a digital demo made with Note Performer. 

The music is now available in The Wilfred Heaton Collection from Studio Music.

Heaton - Five Bagatelles for brass quintet (ed. Hindmarsh)

In June 1990, as part of a music festival promoted alongside Manchester's Olympic bid, I was asked to devise a programme featuring brass bands and voices for a Free Trade Hall concert. In part one Britannia (Foden's) Band gave a brilliant premiere of a BBC commission (at my suggestion) from David Bedford - Toccata for Tristan. Novello did not publish (hire only!) so it has rarely been performed since, but is a really colourful and inventive piece. 

Toccata for Tristan is a sequel to David's wind band Rondo for Isolde. Both are built form famous passages form Wagner's great opera. The Toccata is a much tougher proposition for perform than the Rondo. The rapid repeated figuration is rhythmically highly complex. Howard Snell and the band performed it impeccably. It would be great to hear it live again sometime.

I came across a copy of the digital DAT cassette a little while ago among the collection of old "Safety" recordings I kept rather than deleting or reusing them.  It was a pleasure to relive this dramatic performance. I hope you enjoy it too in this transfer.

David Bedford(1937-2011) - Toccata for Tristan

Prologue to a Workers' Meeting for Brass Orchestra
Year: 1935
Opus: 16
Duration: 7.5 minutes

Written for The International Music Bureau, Moscow, this imposing prelude and fugue was later re-written as 'Resolution' - Overture for Orchestra, Opus 25 in 1943 also for the International Music Bureau, Moscow

The original was composed for a brass choice of trumpets, horns, trombones and tubas. This edition is based on a score ( in Bush's hand)  and set of parts for a version created for Callender's Cable Works Brass Band. I am grateful to Dave Chadwick for making the material available. The character of the music audibly favours symphonic brass even on this mock up, so I might venture to rescore for orchestral forces if the original does not turn up.

ALAN BUSH - Prologue to a Worker's Meeting

In 1910, Frank Bridge (1879-1941) was among a collection of leading British composers of the rising generation to contribute music for massed forces - military bands and choirs - to The Pageant of London, which was a huge community event staged in The Crystal Palace to celebrate the Coronation of George V. Because of his ill health the 28 day event was delayed into May 1911. The pageant was given daily performances throughout the celebration month. Holst and Vaughan Williams were also  among the group of composers.

Bridge wrote two marches and a sequence of dances, which I edited some years ago as the suite The Pageant of London (Faber Music). The second of the marches, played to mark Henry VII arrival into London is partly based on an organ march (1905) and the Westminster Chimes. Last year I arranged the military band original for brass band. 

This is a demo. I hope to be able to publish in due course.

FRANK BRIDGE - March Henry VII (arr. Hindmarsh)

Turning Page - Sleeping At Last Cover Paige & Toby

Crisial Track 3

Original by KNOWER

FULL VID HERE - 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ql_WzL50g4

Hanging On feat. Mared - Live OWAIN HOUSE SESSION 2025    (KNOWER COVER)

Daniel Hall is a British multi award-winning composer & arranger whose works have been performed by some of the country’s leading ensembles, including the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, A4 Brass Quartet, Tredegar Town Band, Orchestra of Opera North and the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain.
His music has been performed and recorded internationally by soloists and ensembles such as: Lode Violet & Brass Band Willebroek (BEL), Brass Band Öberösterreich (AUT), Fabian Bloch & Liberty Brass Band (CHE), Atlantic Brass Band (USA), Brass Band Treize Etoiles (CHE), Gilles Rocha & the European Youth Brass Band, as well as many more.
Daniel graduated from the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama with First Class Honours in Contemporary Composition. Whilst studying, Daniel wrote “Smoke Sketches” and “Sanctuary!”, the set test for the National Youth Brass Band Championships of Great Britain and European Youth Brass Band Championships respectively. In 2019, Daniel won the seventh European Composers Competition in Montreux, Switzerland, for his brass band composition “A Dialogue of Transmogrified Souls…”.  He was asked to compose two fanfares for RWCMD. The first was in honour of the college’s principal, Dame Hilary Boulding, and the second for the college’s president, King Charles III, to mark his 70th birthday, which Daniel conducted. 
Recently, Daniel worked with Brass Band Treize Etoiles (CHE) on a new major composition for the 2021 Swiss Nationals, “Gl!tch”, premiered in the Auditorium Stravinski on his 25th Birthday. In 2022, Daniel worked with Stavanger Brass Band in order to create their entire twenty five minute set, “United We Stand, Divided We Fall”, for which the ensemble was awarded second place at SIDDIS Brass Band Entertainment Contest.

The Black Dahlia - A4 Brass Quartet

Danielhallcomposer

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