Winds of Change
Matanzas High School Band of Pirates
2007 Marching competition show
Phrygian Phantasy - Robert Sheldon
Pageant - Vincent Persichetti
Lauds (High Praise Day) - Ron Nelson
Robert Sheldon
Robert Sheldon (b. Feb 3, 1954) has taught instrumental music in the Florida (Where MHS Director of Bands Steven Knob taught with Mr. Sheldon) and Illinois public schools, and has served on the faculty at Florida State University where he taught conducting and instrumental music education classes, and directed the Marching Chiefs. As Concert Band Editor for the Alfred Publishing Company, he maintains an active composition and conducting schedule, and regularly accepts commissions for new works. Sheldon received the Bachelor of Music in Music Education from the University of Miami and the Master of Fine Arts in Instrumental Conducting from the University of Florida.
An internationally recognized clinician, Sheldon has conducted numerous Regional and All-State Honor Bands throughout the United States and abroad, and is Conductor of the Prairie Wind Ensemble in residence at Illinois Central College. He holds membership in several organizations that promote music and music education. The American School Band Directors Association has honored him with the Volkwein Award for composition and the Stanbury Award for teaching. He has also been an eighteen-time recipient of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publisher's Standard Award for his compositions in the concert band repertoire. His compositions have been recorded and released on compact discs including, Images: The Music of Robert Sheldon, and Infinite Horizons: The Music of Robert Sheldon, as well as numerous other recordings. Mr. Sheldon has been the topic of articles published in The Instrumentalist, Teaching Music and School Band and Orchestra Magazine, and is one of eleven American wind band composers featured in Volume I of Composers on Composing Music for Band. He was honored by the International Assembly of Phi Beta Mu in 1990 as being the International Outstanding Bandmaster of the year.
Phrygian Phantasy (2003) is one in a series of works in which Robert Sheldon explored the ancient church modes in works for middle school band. Other works in the series include Dorian Dreamscape, Lydian Lullaby,and March Mixolydian. Robert Sheldon continues to be at the fore front of composing quality music for younger ensembles.
Vincent Persichetti
Vincent Persichetti (June 6, 1915 – August 14, 1987) was an American composer, teacher, and pianist. An important musical educator and writer, Persichetti, a native of Philadelphia, was known for his integration of various new ideas in musical composition into his own work and teaching, and for training many noted composers. Persichetti was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1915, and remained a resident of that city throughout his life. Though neither of his parents were musicians, his musical education nonetheless began early. Persichetti enrolled in the Combs College of Music at the age of five, where he studied piano, organ, double bass, and later music theory and composition. By the time he reached his teens, he was paying for his own education by accompanying and performing; he continued to do so throughout high school, adding church organist, orchestral player, and radio staff pianist to his experience. His first public performance of his own original works came at the age of 14. He continued to attend Combs for his undergraduate education as well, receiving his bachelor's degree in 1936, when was immediately offered a teaching position.
By the age of 20, Persichetti was simultaneously head of the theory and composition department at Combs, a conducting major with Fritz Reiner at the Curtis Institute, and a student of piano and composition at the Philadelphia Conservatory; He earned a master's degree in 1941 and a doctorate in 1945 from Philadelphia, as well as a conducting diploma from Curtis. In 1947, William Schuman extended an offer of professorship at Juilliard, where his students included Einojuhani Rautavaara, Peter Schickele (P.D.Q. Bach), and Philip Glass.
Persichetti is one of the major figures in American music of the 20th century, both as a teacher and a composer. Many high school and college students' introductions to contemporary music were made by way of his numerous compositions for wind ensemble. His early style was marked by the influences of Stravinsky, Bartók, Hindemith, and Copland before developing into his own distinct voice in the 1950s. Persichetti's music draws on a wide variety of thought in 20th century composition as well as Big Band music while remaining in his own distinct voice. His own style is marked by use of two elements he refers to as "graceful" (lyrical and melodic) and "gritty" (sharp and intensely rhythmic). He frequently uses polytonality and pandiatonicism in his writing, and his style is marked by sharp rhythmic interjections. His embracing of diverse strands of musical thought makes characterizing his body of work difficult. This trend continued throughout his compositional career; his music is not marked by sharp changes in style over time. He frequently composed in his car, sometimes taping staff paper to the steering wheel.
Unlike many composers who restrict the mature output to "heavier" compositions, Persichetti wrote many pieces suitable for "school" performers, considering these young musicians worthy of serious artistic merit. Persichetti is one of the major composers for the concert wind band repertoire, of his 14 works for the ensemble; his Symphony No. 6 for Band, Pageant, Parable IX for Band, Psalm for Band, and Masquerade for Band, all became standards of the wind band litrature. He also wrote one opera, eight symphonies, and four string quartets. Many of his other works are organized into series. One of these, a collection of primarily instrumental works entitled Parables, contains 25 works, many for unaccompanied wind instruments, and his 15 Serenades include such unconventional combinations as a trio for trombone, viola, and cello as well as selections for orchestra, for band, and for duo piano.
In addition to his frequent appearances as lecturer on college campuses, in which he was noted for his witty and engaging manner, he wrote the music theory textbook Twentieth Century Harmony: Creative Aspects and Practice, as well as co-authoring a biography of the noted American composer and teacher (and his boss at Juilliard) William Schuman.
Pageant (1953) was one of Persichetti's first major works for band to gain a wide audience, and helped to usher in a new era of wind band writing that continues until this day - large scale contemporary works by first rate American composers. Pageant was composed in 1953, as something of a sequel to his Psalm written the previous year. Edwin Franko Goldman was responsible for its commissioning from the American Bandmasters Association. A solo French horn begins with a three note motive that becomes the basis for the entire work. A clarinet choir develops the theme as other instruments are introduced to exploit their tonal colors. The tempo becomes faster for the second section, as the brass and woodwinds take turns with the theme. Pageant is an accessible, warmly exuberant work whose simple directness conceals a formal sophistication that lends the music strength and durability.
Ron Nelson
Ron Nelson (b. Dec 14, 1929) is a composer of both classical and popular music and a retired music academic. He was born in Joliet, Illinois, on December 14, 1929. After earning bachelors, masters, and doctoral degrees from the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester in New York, he went to Paris on a Fulbright Scholarship, where he studied at the Ecole Normale de Musique and the Paris Conservatory.
In 1956, Nelson joined the faculty of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where he served as chairman of the music department from 1963 to 1973. Nelson was awarded the Acuff Chair of Excellence in the Creative Arts in 1991, the first musician to hold the chair. His Passacaglia (Homage on B-A-C-H) was the first piece to win all three major wind band composition prizes during one year (1993)—the National Band Association Prize, the American Bandmasters Association Ostwald Prize, and the Sudler International Prize. He was awarded the Medal of Honor by the John Philip Sousa Foundation in 1994. Nelson retired from Brown University in 1993 and currently resides in Arizona. His other works for band include Rocky Point Holiday, Medieval Suite, Aspen Jubilee, and Sonoran Desert Holiday. Nelson writes in all generes, but his 25 compositions for wind ensemble are the most well known of his output. He is also known for his choral works and orcherstral writing.
Conductor Leonard Slatkin may have described Ron Nelson best: “Nelson is the quintessential American composer. He has the ability to move between conservative and newer styles with ease. The fact that he’s a little hard to categorize is what makes him so interesting.”
Lauds (High Praise Day) (1991) is described by the composer as “... an exhuberant, colorful work intended to express feelings of praise and glorification.” Lauds is one of the seven canonical hours that were selected by St. Benedict as the times the monks would observe the daily offices. Three (terce, sext, and none) were the times of the changing of the Roman guards and four (matins, lauds, vespers, and compline) were tied to nature. Lauds, subtitled Praise High Day, honors the sunrise; it is filled with the glory and excitement of a new day. The work received its premier by the U.S. Air Force Band on January 24, 1992