Daniel Gordon is a Professor of Music at Plattsburgh State University of New York, where he teaches studio saxophone, directs the Symphonic Band, and teaches various classroom courses. He is founder, President, and Music Director of the Adirondack Wind Ensemble, a professional wind orchestra that consists primarily of music educators from around upstate New York. He is also a founding member of the Frontier Saxophone Quartet and the Metamusic Trio (saxophone, violin, and piano), both comprised of performers from the Plattsburgh region and Montreal. He has served as Music Director of the McGill University Wind Symphony and the Adirondack Youth Orchestra. About his Old McDonald Concerto, composer Daniel Gordon explains, “The idea of concertos for beginning players inspired me to write this piece…Beginners deserve to experience the thrill of being a concerto soloist just like older and more experienced players.” A collegiate and adult amateur band director and saxophonist by profession, Gordon had experimented with mixed-ability-level concertos with his ensembles prior to composing Old McDonald. In fact, he introduced me to Petri Juutilainen’s beginner-level concertos several years before my 2016-2017 pilot study and the 2017-2018 project. Seeking to experiment with creative performance experiences between the audience and musicians, he had great success programming Juutilainen’s concertos with local elementary school students as soloists with his adult community band, the Plattsburgh State University Symphonic Band. When the idea arose of commissioning many concertos for young soloists, Gordon was interested in contributing to the repertoire. Specifically, he aimed to write a piece that would be a crowd-pleaser. He wrote, "I’m thinking of writing a simple piece based on Old McDonald, because in my experience, the kids’ concertos based on familiar material were the most successful. I’d like the soloist to play the theme three times (it has five pitches in it), with members of the ensemble making different animal noises at each statement of the theme (clarinet mouthpieces will be geese, half-valve trumpet will be a horse, and glissando bones will be a cow." Ultimately, Gordon created his Old McDonald concerto with six verses featuring various instruments in the wind band as farm animals. Three of the verses (“Duck,” “Sheep,” and “Shark”) are optional, and the three verses of “Cow,” “Horse,” and “Geese” are required. The concerto is between 5’30” and 3’00” in length, depending on how many verses are performed. Each verse showcases a different group of instruments from the band with extended techniques, such as a trumpet horse whinny, and musical quotes, such as the William Tell Overture. The accompaniment therefore is engaging for advanced-level players, while the soloist repeats the same five-note melody in the familiar key of E-flat major. Finally, the solo part is designed to include a variety of instruments. Gordon wrote solos in C, B-flat, E-flat, F, and bass clef, making it possible for any wind band instrument to perform them. Gordon’s background in pedagogy proved especially useful to him as a composer. In a personal e-mail correspondence, Gordon wrote, “I think that part of the reason I ‘get’ this is because I have experience as a conductor who deals with ensembles of limited skills. I have learned what works and what does not, and put all of that to use in this piece. I have always believed that my activity as a conductor informs my instrumental playing and vice-versa. I think it is true of composing, too. Far too many composers are not performers, and as such they just don't get what works in the real world. The worst is the frequent mentality of composers (and performers) that harder is better. I also have a great appreciation for making something of quality with limited technical demands. The finest example of this, which has inspired me, is Dr. Seuss. This hit me like a ton of bricks one day while I was reading The Cat in the Hat to my then 6-year-old daughter. I suddenly realized that over 90% of the words in that book are one syllable. It takes real craft to write an interesting story using almost exclusively one-syllable words.” Old McDonald Concerto has been performed in Finland by the Finnish Navy Band and by the Junior Wind Band at the Turku Conservatory, as well as at the Building Bridges Through Music Festival at Arizona State University. AuthorMelanie Brooks is the Director of Bands at Winona State University and co-founder of Leading Tones Music, LLC.
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There are very few times when I have been so moved by a concert featuring young musicians than I was at Arizona State University's recent Concert Band and Philharmonia concert. Three of Leading Tones Music's composers (Eric Xu, Zachary Bush and JP Lempke) had works premiered at the event by grade school soloists from The Harmony Project Phoenix - an organization dedicated to providing after-school music lessons to students who otherwise might not have the opportunity. The ASU Philharmonia accompanied seven students ranging in age from seven to fifteen on new pieces for string orchestra written specifically for the project. Eric Xu's Brightly as the Summer Sun featured grade 1 flute and clarinet playing simple intervals over rich and dynamic string writing. While the young performers seemed a little nervous to play in front of so many people, the warmness of the audience was palpable. Xu's piece was followed by Dominic Dousa's lush and lyrical Songs from a Mountain Trail, which featured three soloists on the violin. Dousa's brilliant string writing in the accompaniment made me forget for a moment that the simple melodies in the solo part were performed by students who had only been playing for a year or less. The rousing applause that followed made it clear to me that many in the audience had similar experiences. Zach Bush's concerto for double bass, Dusk Mountain, showed young bassists that there is equal room in the spotlight for their instrument as any other. Bush's energetic solo part showcased the great strengths of both the low and high ranges, and represented an optimism for an expanded pedagogical bass repertoire in the future. Perhaps the most daring offering of the evening, however, was JP Lempke's aleatoric Fill in the Colors White. Pedagogical works rarely feature nonstandard notation, harsh dissonances, or sounds borrowed from electronic music (Lempke's usual fare). The inclusion of all three elements made Fill in the Colors White a standout piece of the evening, which was otherwise almost entirely consonant and tonal. The singular experience of hearing Lempke's shifting textures was only heightened by the fact that the violin soloist was perhaps the youngest of the group. This year's collaborations between ASU and The Harmony Project Phoenix have clearly demonstrated the educational and cultural value of mixed-level musical experiences involving living composers. In nothing was this made more apparent than the ear-to-ear smiles of the young students as they acknowledged their audience's appreciation. The future of such collaborations is indeed bright. AuthorStephen Mitton is a full-time music teacher in Phoenix, Arizona and co-founder of Leading Tones Music, LLC. Leading Tones Music made its official debut this past weekend at the College Band Directors' National Association (CBDNA) West/Northwest Regional Conference on March 21-24. Hosted by Dr. Andy Collinsworth at Sonoma State University, the conference consisted of daily lectures, presentations, and performances by some of the best ensembles in the country. I was honored to give a presentation about the Concertos for Young Soloists project and the Building Bridges through Music festival. Attendees explored ways to engage with young musicians in meaningful collaborations and also learned about the exciting new repertoire that was created by composers from around the world and is now being published and promoted by Leading Tones Music! I was fortunate to have many meaningful conversations with college band directors and composers amidst the idyllic landscape of the Sonoma Valley (and occassionaly over a glass of California vineyard-fresh wine!). I left the conference feeling uplifted about the great potential of mixed-ability-level music. Our Concertos for Young Soloists series is just the beginning of an exciting journey to connect diverse communities together in purposeful collaborations! |