Percussion Ensemble

Commissioned by the current and former members of the Boise Philharmonic Percussion Section, Sunward/Onward is a keyboard percussion sextet dedicated to Dr. John Baldwin on the occasion of his retirement from Boise State University after 50 years of teaching. The piece draws inspiration from the poem “My Triumph” by John Greenleaf Whittier, which truly captures the essence of passing the torch.

Sunward/Onward (keyboard  percussion sextet) - Nathan Daughtrey

"This Dance With You" takes inspiration from jazz and minimalism. It is a fragile and intimate duet for piano and marimba, where the instruments alternate roles like partners in a dance.

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This Dance With You (duet for marimba & piano) - Jane K

Celebrating the legacy of Marcellus Brown’s tenure as director of bands at Boise State University, "Through an Open Door" is a lush setting of Dvorák’s "Goin’ Home" that cleverly marries the chromatic spelling of “MARCELLUS” with the original spiritual. The arrangement stays true to the original while adding new countermelodies, re-harmonization, and fresh colors and textures.

INSTRUMENTATION
Piccolo
Flute 1 & 2
Oboe
Bassoon 1 & 2
B-flat Clarinet 1, 2, 3
Bass Clarinet
Soprano Saxophone
Alto Saxophone
Tenor Saxophone
Baritone Saxophone

B-flat Trumpet 1, 2, 3
F Horn 1, 2, 3, 4
Trombone 1 & 2
Bass Trombone
Euphonium 1 & 2
Tuba 1 & 2

Piano
Timpani
Percussion 1: Chimes [shared], Glockenspiel
Percussion 2: Vibraphone, Crotales, Chimes [shared]
Percussion 3: Ocean Drum [shared], Bell Tree, Triangle, Suspended Cymbal
Percussion 4: Suspended Cymbal, Concert Bass Drum, Ocean Drum [shared]

Through An Open Door: A Setting of "Goin' Home" (Band Gr. 4.5) - Nathan Daughtrey

Percussion 1 (bells, xylophone, chimes)
Percussion 2 (vibraphone)
Percussion 3 (4-octave marimba)
Percussion 4 (4.3-octave marimba)
Percussion 5 (4 timpani, wind chimes)
Percussion 6 (snare drum, 4 toms, triangle)
Percussion 7 (kick bass drum, tam-tam)
Percussion 8 (splash cymbal, suspended cymbal, China cymbal, hi-hat, woodblock)

Fidget (percussion octet) - Nathan Daughtrey

"Meanwhile in a Parallel Universe" is a fantasy based on the notion that our brief time on this earth can have any number of outcomes depending on the decisions we make, the relationships we encounter, and how present we are along the way. As our stories evolve through circumstance, timing, and millions of decisions big and small, alternate stories are spun based on which forks in the road we take. The result is an adventure filled with both uncertainty and accomplishment – byproducts of a vulnerable journey.

The piece is designed to play out as if it were an episodic journey filled with wonder. It is constructed in three short, connected movements featuring a solo marimbist accompanied by eight percussionists. While each movement has its own identity, their melodies and harmonic DNA (built upon a seventh suspended fourth chord) keep them rooted to the same story – one that sometimes sounds resolute, and at other times, ungrounded.

Harmonically, the forks in the road of "Meanwhile in a Parallel Universe" are dictated by restating ideas in mediant relation (modulations of minor thirds). Just as we're always ourselves even when in unfamiliar territory, the goal was to create unpredictable turns harmonically while maintaining thematic familiarity within the restatements.

The first movement is held by a rhythmic pattern of fifteen beats (three bars of 2/4 plus a bar of 3/8). This doesn't reveal itself clearly until the syncopated bass ostinato enters, following the dawn of a curious introduction. With sure-footedness the main theme is introduced by the soloist weaving a complex pattern of four-mallet permutations. The ensemble restates this with fuller orchestration, leading to a development of virtuosic acrobatics by the soloist, and culminating in a whirlwind fight for survival.

We descend into the second movement through a rubato series of anxious flourishes. These built on chords containing diminished seconds and augmented fifths, making them feel less grounded. This moves into a distant and reflective period as the soloist arpeggiates the seventh suspended fourth ostinato in the left hand while the right hand plays melancholy, sustained one-handed rolls. This develops from lonely isolation into ferocious layers of conviction.

The intensity reaches a breaking point in which new clarity is achieved through a pulsating, accelerating unison. From this clarity, the journey of the third movement embarks. Unlike the first two movement's fifteen-beat motive, the meter switches to a more comfortable 12/8. The melody here is based on the same DNA from before, but proceeds with a newfound sense of identity. This adventure leads through blazing displays of technique from the soloist and culminates in a courageous and triumphant march forward.

"Meanwhile in a Parallel Universe" was commissioned by Bloomsburg University (Bloomsburg, PA) under the direction of Dr. Gifford Howarth, and the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music (Singapore), under the direction of Jonathan Fox. It will premiere in Singapore in March 2012 featuring Dr. Howarth as the soloist with the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory percussion ensemble.

Meanwhile in a Parallel Universe

Spiraling Light was inspired by an event that took place in Norway in December of 2009, when a blue mysterious beam of light with a grayish spiral emanating from it appeared in the night sky. Initial speculations suggested it was a fireball meteor, a rare never-before-seen Northern Lights variant, or even a wormhole opening up. Unfortunately, it turned out to be much less exciting than any of those things – a failed Russian missile test.

Spiraling Light (percussion octet) - Nathan Daughtrey

"The Cruel Waters"
Composed by Adam Silverman, 2015
Performed by Troy University Percussion (T. Adam Blackstock, director)
Justis Davis, Andrew Patzig and Tyler Whitehead, marimbas
Recorded 2016 by Garnet House Productions
John W. Parks IV, engineer

The Cruel Waters

This is a small binary piece, which offers many opportunities to showcase various piano techniques. Tiny Monsters is a set of small character pieces, I composed, for the intermediate pianist. The melody is based off of a hymn I stumbled across titled, "The Bells of Hell Go ting-a-ling-a-ling." It was originally this horrible jaunty G-major melody that was just begging to be turned into the grotesque melody the title of the hymn suggests. I hope you enjoy!

Tiny Monsters - Hatchet the Clown

Score and more: http://www.stevenbryant.com/music/catalog/nothing-gold-can-stay

Nothing Gold Can Stay was commissioned as a surprise gift for Kevin Sedatole in honor of his first ten years at Michigan State University. His conducting students spanning that decade, led by Jamal Duncan and Armand Hall, banded together and approached me at the 2015 College Band Directors National Convention in Nashville about writing the work, and I knew immediately that I couldn’t refuse this special project, made all the more appropriate because my wife, Verena, was one of Kevin’s very first students at MSU.

The music is my deliberate attempt to write a chorale – something simple, beautiful, and familiar. The deceptive surface simplicity of Robert Frost’s poem seems to coincide with this music, particularly the paradoxical descending of dawn to day, all embodying the concept of felix culpa, or “lucky fall” – the idea that loss can bring greater good, and is in fact necessary.

Nothing Gold Can Stay (MSU World Premiere)

WANT IT. NEED IT. HAVE IT.
Composed by Adam Silverman (2015)
Performed by the RoseWind Duo: Clifford Leaman (alto saxophone) and Scott Herring (marimba)
From the 2016 CD "Devils Garden/Angels Landing" on Equilibrium records (EQ161). Used with permission.

www.equilibri.com
www.adambsilverman.com

WANT IT. NEED IT. HAVE IT.

ANTIQUE VIOLENCES : Concerto for Trumpet
Movement 1
by John Mackey

MIDI Demo
Commissioned by Michigan State University and The American Bandmasters Association
To premiere March 2017, CBDNA convention, Kansas City. Justin Emerich, trumpet.

Four movements in total, each depicting a type of violence. This movement (movement 1), portrays military violence, and imagines if the Revolutionary War had been fought against... I don't know. Where is the music modal and in 13/8? Macedonia?

Score available here: ostimusic.com/pdf/Mvt1-SCORE.pdf

John Mackey: Antique Violences - Mvt 1 demo

PAPER COVERS ROCK
Composed 2016 by Adam Silverman
Live world premiere performance by the Quey Percussion Duo at Weber Music Hall, University of Minnesota-Duluth on Nov. 21, 2016.

Paper Covers Rock

III. Jötenheim: The Land of the Giants - Nathan Daughtrey

Mercury Rising for Percussion Ensemble

Unleash the Fury for Marimba Quartet

Commissioned by the Monroe Township Middle School Percussion Ensemble, Yale Snyder, Director
and Zachary Morolda, District Supervisor of the Department for the Applied Arts and Career Technology;
Monroe Township School District; Monroe Township, NJ 

INSTRUMENTATION
Bells & Xylophone (shared)
Vibraphone & Marimba (shared with Marimba 2)
Chimes & Xylophone
Marimba 1 (4-octave) & Vibraphone (shared)
Marimba 2 (4.3-octave) & Vibraphone (shared)
Timpani (4 drums)
Percussion 1 (Snare Drum, Triangle, Crash Cymbal)
Percussion 2 (4 Concert Toms, Wind Chimes, Crash Cymbal)
Percussion 3 (Suspended Cymbal, Hi-Hat)
Percussion 4 (Concert Bass Drum, Tam-Tam)
Percussion 5 [optional] (Shaker, Tambourine)
Percussion 6 [optional] (Woodblock, Cowbell)

Luminescence (perc ens 10-12) - Nathan Daughtrey

Percussionist, composer, & educator Nathan Daughtrey (b. 1975) is a musical chameleon who uses his wide-ranging talents to adapt comfortably to a variety of environments. As a performing artist and clinician for Yamaha percussion, Vic Firth sticks & mallets, Zildjian cymbals, and Black Swamp accessories, he has performed and given masterclasses and clinics throughout the United States and across three continents. Nathan has recorded two solo marimba albums to date – "Spiral Passages" and "The Yuletide Marimba" – as well as several chamber music albums, including a recent collaboration with euphoniumist Brian Meixner titled "Praxis."

With over 60 publications for percussion ensemble, concert band, orchestra, chamber ensembles, and soloists as well as an ever-growing number of commissions, Nathan balances his performing with composing, and to great acclaim. He is the only composer in the history of the Percussive Arts Society International Composition Contest to procure both 2nd and 3rd place in the same year with his percussion ensemble works "Limerick Daydreams" and "Adaptation," respectively. Nathan's compositions appear regularly on performances at PASIC, the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic, the Bands of America National Percussion Festival, and in concert halls and other performance venues around the world. His works have also been recorded on several albums by respected performers, including the FSU Percussion Ensemble, the Showa Wind Symphony conducted by Ray Cramer, the RoseWind Duo, and Mississippi State University. Additionally, three of his compositions for wind ensemble have been featured in three volumes of "Teaching Music Through Performance in Band."

As an educator, Nathan served as a Visiting Lecturer of Percussion for three years at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where he taught applied percussion and conducted the Percussion Ensemble. He also served as a sabbatical replacement at the University of Oklahoma, where he taught undergraduate and graduate percussion students and conducted the world-renowned OU Percussion Orchestra. Dr. Daughtrey is currently a Visiting Lecturer of Percussion and Music Composition at High Point University (NC), where he teaches applied lessons, directs the percussion ensemble and works in collaboration with the School of Communication and Department of Dance.

Nathan remains active within the Percussive Arts Society serving as a member of the Composition Contest Committee, organizing the PASIC Fun Runs on behalf of the Health and Wellness Committee, and editing the keyboard percussion articles for Percussive Notes.

Spiraling Light (percussion octet) - Nathan Daughtrey

Nathan Daughtrey

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