Catalyst for Wind Symphony

I. Momentum

University of Maryland Symphony Band
L. Richmond Sparks, conductor

Finalist - Third International Frank Ticheli Composition Contest

I. Momentum for wind ensemble

Catalyst for Wind Symphony

III. Last Twilght

University of Maryland Symphonic Band
L. Richmond Sparks, conductor


III. Last Twilight for wind ensemble

Catalyst for Wind Symphony

IV.  Catalyst

University of Maryland Symphony Band
L. Richmond Sparks, conductor

First prize winner in the 2003 Penfield Commission Project

IV. Catalyst for wind ensemble

Poem for Wind Ensemble
Blaserorchester Sudwind
Ronald Johnson, conductor

Finalist in the 1999 G. Schirmer Young American Bands Competition

POEM for wind ensemble

Beyond a Wild Dream
Quad Cities Symphony Orchestra, Mark Russell Smith, Music Director

PROGRAM NOTE
When I travel back to my childhood home in Iowa to visit family and friends, I often take a couple of days to drive and visit the towns and cities inhabiting the Mississippi River Bend.  Traveling through these communities, one sees both old and new, theaters, dance halls, and park bandstands. Stay long enough and you may begin to hear stories from local residents of a traveling opera company or theater troupe that passed through long ago.  What strikes me in all these cases is that in each town someone had the crazy, wild dream of bringing the arts to their community no matter how big or small. The Quad Cities is one such community where a hundred years ago a group of townspeople had a wild dream to create and support a full symphony orchestra. With this in mind, I began composing imagining what it was like to have attended the first performance in 1916. Twelve hundred people, gathered together at the Burtis Opera House to listen to Wagner, Schubert, Saint-Saëns and Tchaikovsky that I am sure for many was for the very first time.  In my imaginings, I soon realized I had a similar experience sixty years later, growing up in a small town, hearing a live orchestra for the first time on a school field trip. I left the performance, changed by what I heard, and began to dream. 

Beyond a Wild Dream in its development pays homage to those who dream, for those who build, for those who keep the dream alive.  



Beyond a Wild Dream for orchestra

World premiere live performance of SKRONK for wind ensemble featuring Dr. Andrew Mast and the Lawrence University Wind Ensemble.

SKRONK for wind ensemble

To a Mourning Dove by John Frantzen

Featured in "Portrait of Maquoketa - The Dimensional View" at the Figge Art Museum.

To a Mourning Dove - sound installation

Voice of Maquoketa by John Frantzen

Chapters
00:00	Opening
01:08	Maquoketa
03;04     Age
03:38	Small town
05:18	Big city
06:14	Um Uh
06:56	Progress
08:52	Be open
09:48	I don't know
09:58	Change
10:52	Yes, No
11:12	        Boring
12:46	Small talk
13:06	Downtown
16:34	Music speech
18:02	The future
21:10	        Saying and Proverbs
21:50	Family
24:08	Wisdom-Ending


Voice Of Maquoketa

SO SIMPLE for wind ensemble and fixed media

The University of Central Missouri wind ensemble, Dr. Scott Lubaroff

Popular tracks by John Frantzen