Full Orchestra - Level 4 - Digital Download SKU: A0.869677 Composed by Thomas Oboe Lee. 20th Century,Contemporary,Romantic Period. Score and parts. 147 pages. Thomas Oboe Lee #5968133. Published by Thomas Oboe Lee (A0.869677). Conceptually it all began a year ago when I came upon a book edited by Jonathan Safran Foer, A Convergence of Birds: Original Fiction and Poetry Inspired by the Work of Joseph Cornell. It is a beautiful book for the mind and the eyes: imaginative short stories and poetry alongside magnificently rendered color-plate reproductions of several Joseph Cornell box constructions. The book led me to a biography by Deborah Solomon, Utopia Parkway, and the germ of a symphonic work for Joseph Cornell was born.Symphony No. 5 ... Utopia Parkway is in five movements.I. Allegro marcato 3708 Utopia Parkway, Flushing, NYII. Lento The Enchanted Wanderer ... for Hedy LaMarr, 1941III. Avian scherzo Habitat Group for a Shooting Gallery, 1943IV. Allegro ... à la Can-can A Pantry Ballet ... for Jacques Offenbach, 1942 V. Moderato Apotheosis: Mary Baker Eddy, Christian ScientistJoseph Cornell lived most of his life with his mother and brother Robert at 3807 Utopia Parkway, Flushing, NY. The first movement, Allegro marcato, is a musical rendition of Joseph’s daily commute into Manhattan where he frequently visited dime stores, junk shops, used book stores, the New City Public Library, art galleries, movie houses and restaurants like Bickford’s and Schraft’s.The Enchanted Wanderer is a collage work on paper by Joseph Cornell – a tribute to Hedy Lamarr. Hollywood fascinated Cornell. He made several box constructions as tributes to movie stars like Lauren Bacall, Jennifer Jones, Greta Garbo, Audrey Hepburn, etc.Avian scherzo. Many of Cornell’s boxes featured cutout pictures of parakeets, parrots and cockatoos. Habitat Group for a Shooting Gallery is an especially evocative box of his aviary series. There are four birds in it, amidst other odds and ends. A number is attached to each one. There is a crack in the glass encasement – as if hit by a bullet. Blood splatters from the head of one of the birds. . In between the shooting gallery music, there is a Trio: a requiem for the dead cockatoo.Allegro ... à la Can-can. Cornell attended the ballet fervently. He made many box constructions inspired by ballet dancers: Fanny Cerrito, Marie Taglioni, Tamara Toumanova, Zizi Jeanmaire, Allegra Kent, etc. A Pantry Ballet for Jacques Offenbach is a very funny box with five red plastic lobsters in tutus. I provided a polka as background music. This movement is dedicated to Allegra Kent – a friend and confidante of Cornell.Joseph Cornell was an active member of the Christian Science Church for all of his adult life. He attended services regularly, and taught Sunday-school classes. For a while he even worked as an attendant in a Christian Science Reading Room in Great Neck, NY. In the Christian Science Hymnal I found several hymns written by the founder, Mary Baker Eddy, set to music by a number of different composers. I wrote a new tune to her hymn, Shepherd, show me how to go. The last movement, Apotheosis, is a theme and variations on this tune. It begins like a singing congregation, and it ends with the opening of Heaven’s doors – for Joseph, of course.Audio link: https://thomasoboelee.bandcamp.com/album/symphony-no-5-utopia-parkway-2003

Full Orchestra - Level 4 - Digital Download SKU: A0.869351 Composed by Thomas Oboe Lee. 20th Century,Baroque,Classical,Contemporary,Romantic Period. Score and parts. 81 pages. Thomas Oboe Lee #15869. Published by Thomas Oboe Lee (A0.869351). Instrumentation: 3232-4331-timp-2perc-strings. When I received the invitation from Jonathan Cohler to write a Concerto for Orchestra for the Brockton Symphony, I immediately thought of all the composers who wrote works inspired by Bartok’s seminal work of the same title: Roger Sessions, Elliott Carter, Michael Tippett, Witold Lutoslawski, Joan Tower and, most recently, Jennifer Higdon. My Concerto for Orchestra, opus 111, is in five movements. It will be heard without pause between movements. I. Largo … Misterioso! II. Allegro con moto … Evidence!!! III. Adagio … Epistrophy! IV. Andante … In Walked Bud! V. Presto … Rhythm-a-ning!!! My initial idea for the Concerto was contrast - contrast between the timbres and colors that the various sections in an orchestra provide. For example, the woodwinds would provide a sharp contrast against the brass; the percussion section against the strings, etc. I also was interested in writing a work where each movement would flow into the next without pause – thus providing another form of contrast, that of tempi and mood change. A third form of contrast would be the different styles and forms of music that I would come up with. And I had a lot of fun conjuring up the many possible scenarios and orchestral tableaux. I actually started with the second movement: the Allegro con moto. I wanted something that had a nice surging quality that the whole orchestra could jump into. When I finished that, I thought perhaps it would be too intense for the opening of the work. I thought, maybe I should begin with something slower, more brooding in nature before the explosive stuff. I noticed that Carter’s Concerto began with a slow Introduction. It had a title: Misterioso. Being an avid fan of Thelonious Monk, aka Thelonious Sphere Monk, Misterioso brought to mind a Monk composition of the same title. That epiphany gave me the idea of naming each of the five movements after a Monk tune. Monk’s Misterioso is a blues with an insistent theme of 8th note patterns of rising 6ths; which has nothing to do with my first movement. My Misterioso features a solo for the bass clarinet in the midst of a shimmering atmosphere that is punctuated by accents in the bass. They are both mysterious, but divergently opposed in mood and substance. Monk’s Evidence is a tune with jabs and punches, irregularly placed within the measure – not unlike what I did in the second movement. This movement is perhaps the most Monk-ish of all. Monk’s Epistrophy is a tune constructed with a four-note pattern that is angular and twisted. I wrote a solemn brass choir movement that is an epistle in nature, a sermon of sorts. The title of Monk’s In Walked Bud refers, of course, to the amazing pianist Bud Powell. I took the word walk and translated it into an andante. What resulted was a silly, but jolly movement featuring the woodwinds. I wanted to end the work with a fast and furious finale. Inspired by the word rhythm in Monk’s Rhythm-a-ning, I began the last movement with a solo for the percussion section – timpani, tom-toms, bass drum!!! The orchestra eventually joins in the mayhem, breaking into a scherzo-like frenzy. It ends with a big bang!!! Enjoy!!!Audio link: https://thomasoboelee.bandcamp.com/album/concerto-for-orchestra-opus-111-2005

Full Orchestra - Level 4 - Digital Download SKU: A0.1023992 Composed by Kyle Wernke. Contemporary,Folk,Holiday,Patriotic. Score and parts. 109 pages. Kyle Wernke Publishing #2121501. Published by Kyle Wernke Publishing (A0.1023992). Commissioned by the Fort Smith Symphony - John Jeter, Conductor John Trumbull (June 6, 1756 - November 10, 1843) is perhaps the most overlooked of the Founding Fathers of The United States. Born and raised in Connecticut, John Trumbull was the son of Jonathan Trumbull (October 12, 1710 - August 17, 1785), Governor of Connecticut from 1769 to 1784, the only Royal Governor to side with the Americans during the Revolutionary War. Trumbull fought in the revolution, witnessing Bunker Hill and using his artistic abilities to sketch the British Works at Boston. Later, he was appointed second personal aide to General Washington, and in June 1776 he served as deputy adjutant-general to General Horatio Gates. Trumbull resigned from the army in 1777 over a dispute about the dating of his commission. In 1780 Trumbull traveled to London to study under Benjamin West: It was West who urged Trumbull to paint small pictures of the War of Independence, the works which would make him famous (he painted around 250 during his lifetime). In September of 1780, Continental troops captured British agent Major John Andre, after news of this reached Great Britain, Trumbull was arrested in retaliation. He was imprisoned for seven months. After the War, Trumbull again traveled to London, and then to Paris. It was here that Trumbull began work on two of the works depicted in this piece. He made sketches for the Surrender of Lord Cornwallis and, with the help of Thomas Jefferson, the US minister to France, he began working on The Declaration of Independence. In addition to paintings depicting the revolution, Trumbull painted numerous portraits, including those of George Washington, George Clinton (Governor of New York), Alexander Hamilton (the source of the $10 bill), and John Adams. I was tasked with composing a piece which would be educational for the students in attendance. I ended up writing a piece that would have educational material both in its musical construction and its subject matter. Trumbull's use of color, especially darker hues, and the structure of his paintings informed the construction of the piece. Three specific paintings influenced the work: The Capture of the Hessisans at the Battle of Trenton, The Declaration of Independence, and The Surrender of Lord Cornwallis. A recurring theme in the work of Trumbull is how the central act is always depicted at the center, with opposing groups on either side. The piece derives its form from this trait, casting the two large battle sections on the outsides, with the central act of the Revolutionary War in the center (The Declaration of Independence). The only percussion in the piece are drums, lending a certain militaristic feeling to the work, and evoking images of marching armies. Extended techniques are used repeatedly, casting a shade of uncertainty around the military campaigns (Washington's famous crossing of the Delaware and the seige at Yorktown), while The Declaration of Independence is scored in strict time and with more traditional harmonies, solidifying the event as the central moment of American history.

Full Orchestra - Level 4 - Digital Download SKU: A0.869365 Composed by Thomas Oboe Lee. 20th Century,Classical,Contemporary,Latin,Romantic Period. Score and parts. 102 pages. Thomas Oboe Lee #29655. Published by Thomas Oboe Lee (A0.869365). Instrumentation: 2222-4321-2perc-pf-strings. When Andrea Bates, executive director of the Brockton Symphony Orchestra, first told me that the Brockton Symphony had commissioned me to write a new work to be premiered in 2003-2004, I immediately thought that since its music director, Jonathan Cohler, is a marvelous clarinetist I would be most attracted to the idea of writing a clarinet concerto for the occasion. Both Andrea and Jonathan were very receptive and enthusiastic about my idea. Andrea also told me that the commissioned work should somehow bring to attention the diverse cultures of the recent immigrants that have settled in the city of Brockton. So in the spring of 2003 I came down to Brockton for a meeting to which Andrea had invited representative members of these new communities. Three showed up: Maria Evora-Rosa, Rick Marrero and Fred Fontaine. Andrea had asked them to bring recordings of the music from their countries for me to listen to. There were CDs of very exciting and fun music from Cape Verde, Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Haiti. After spending months listening to the music from these countries, all of them islands in the Atlantic or the Caribbean, I slowly began to get a sense of the beauty and the magic of the musical style and language of each place, each individual island. The end result is a three-movement work for clarinet and orchestra. Unlike the traditional Concerto form which is Fast-Slow-Fast, this work begins with something slow. A fast number follows as a second movement; and then, after a short, slow interlude, another fast number appears. The first movement is my adaptation of the morna of Cape Verde – slow, melancholy and sad. The diva of the morna is Cesaria Evora. Her singing brings to mind a fusion between the African blues and the Portuguese fado. The second movement is my take on the merengue as performed by the inimitable Xavier Cugat. It is dance music through and through!!! The third movement is also a dance number: the ever-popular music from Haiti, the reggae. And in order to give some contrast between the two dance numbers, I added a slow chorale for clarinet and strings that serves as a prelude before the dancing begins in the final movement. I envision the chorale as a little church music before the people go out and dance the night away. Throughout the entire work, the solo clarinet is the principal voice … singing, dancing, and cavorting!!! Gotta dance!!! Have fun and enjoy the music!!! I surely did as I was working on it ….