The Madison County Middle School Honor Band commissioned a new grade 2 piece for their performance in 2021. Highland Folkways includes a poignant, reflective setting of Hallelujah, What a Savior by Philip Bliss and a festive, up-tempo version of the folk tune Old Joe Clark. Thanks to Mr. Donald Dowdy and all the directors in Madison County for this opportunity! 

With high achievement in musical learning and performance in mind, Rehearsal Targets extracts important musical elements from pieces in the wind band repertoire and presents them in the form of an ensemble warm-up.  While directors may continue to emphasize basic skills in their existing routine, Rehearsal Targets provides a link between playing fundamental exercises and rehearsing the literature.  Click here to see more about the teaching philosophy and approach in Rehearsal Targets.

Available titles include:

Variations on a Korean Folk Song - Chance

Green Bushes - Grainger

Children's March - Grainger

True Love of Mine - Singletary

Additional titles may be commissioned - contact Thomas Singletary for more information. 

The Pure in Heart (2017) features majestic ascending lines, playful dissonances, and varying rhythmic patterns of 2 against 3.  The title of the piece was inspired by Psalm 24: 

The earth is the  Lord’s,  and everything in it, 
    the world, and all who live in it; 
 for he founded it on the seas 
    and established it on the waters. 

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 Who may ascend the mountain  of the  Lord? 
    Who may stand in his holy place? 
 The one who has clean hands  and a pure heart, 
    who does not trust in an idol 
    or swear by a false god.

Scored for brass and percussion, The Pure in Heart was selected as a winning entry in the Dallas Winds Fanfare Competition and received its premier by the Dallas Winds in 2017.  The recording below features the TCU Wind Symphony Brass conducted by Dr. Laura Singletary in April, 2018. 

Commissioned by Florida State University for a performance commemorating the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion at Normandy, France. 

Arranged with 3 trumpet parts, 2 horn parts, 2 trombone parts, 1 euphonium and 1 tuba part (no percussion). 

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Branches of the military are represented in order of their founding: Army, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard, Air Force.  

Commissioned by Florida State University for a performance commemorating the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion at Normandy, France. 

Arranged with 3 trumpet parts, 2 horn parts, 2 trombone parts, 1 euphonium and 1 tuba part (no percussion). 

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Two bugle calls are interwoven throughout to commemorate fallen soldiers--Britain's "Last Post" and America's "Taps."

Commissioned by the Stiletto Brass Quintet, Lovers No More (2018) is a medley of three songs from the early 1900's: After You've Gone, I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now, and Bill Bailey, Won't You Please Come Home? The arrangement is scored to feature a brass quintet with a modern concert band accompaniment. Melodic interjections from the quintet, a variety of musical styles, and a few surprises along the way make this medley a favorite with audiences everywhere.

True Love of Mine (2015) is a set of variations on the English folk song Scarborough Fair. The melody uses the Dorian mode similar to other British folk melodies in the band repertoire such as Grainger's Rufford Park Poachers, Vaughn Williams' My Bonny Boy, and Holst's I'll Love My Love. The simultaneous sounding of the sixth and seventh scale degrees of the Dorian mode creates a colorful dissonance that is used throughout the piece to represent longing and heartache. After an introduction, the entire theme is first presented using traditional harmonies by a saxophone quartet. In subsequent variations, the melody is inverted, stated in canon, fragmented, transformed, and widely varied in meter and tonality. Each musical variation represents an emotion we may experience in the complex journey of a loving relationship - beginning with loneliness, then excitement, fulfillment, nostalgia, frustration, happiness and celebration.

I.   Passepied

II.  The Girl with the Flaxen Hair

III. Le Petit Nègre

Transcribed (in 2015) from three works for piano by Claude Debussy, this piece explores beautiful melodies and lush impressionist harmonies.  Written for brass quintet and double woodwind quintet.  See the MEDIA page for the complete performance.

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Gustav Mahler was a visionary composer and conductor, and his symphonies have become standard repertoire for orchestras around the world.  Mahler was a meticulous and passionate person, and each of Mahler’s nine symphonies requires the highest degree of musical virtuosity and sensitivity.  The 6th Symphony was composed at one of the happiest times of Mahler’s life, in the summers of 1903-04. While the original score put the Scherzo movement before the Andante, the composer later reversed this order to the more traditional design. This transcription of the Andante movement was commissioned by the Niceville High School Wind Ensemble in 2019.  The length, tonality, and instrumentation of the original music contributed to the decision to design an excerpt from this movement of the symphony, using only one cut to lessen the burden of overall length while largely retaining the flow of the original music.

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Originally arranged for brass ensemble, this transcription (2014) preserves the original key of D major in an abbreviated version of the original piece.

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The piece is dedicated to Florida Bandmasters Hall of Fame member and legendary teacher, Jack Crew.  Click here to view a video of the brass ensemble performance and click below to listen to a performance of the Symphonic Band transcription.

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Used by hundreds of music educators across the southeast, the 3rd edition of the Band Warm-Up provides a flexible routine to start every rehearsal while providing an opportunity to transfer concepts from the warm-up to the literature in rehearsal.

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Available exclusively at The Horn Section in Melbourne, Florida.

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Echoes of Winter Past explores many moods of winter: lonely isolation, joyous celebration, thoughtful reflection, and powerful resolve. The opening of the piece depicts an isolated, peaceful snowscape; the tempo should be free, and the musicians may experiment with rhythmic freedom in an aleatoric fashion.

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This grade 2 concert band piece is published by Excelcia Publishing.

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Studio recording session video by Excelcia Publishing

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Preview the score

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