Full Orchestra - Level 5 - Digital Download SKU: A0.1018921 Composed by Benjamin Harry Sajo. 20th Century,Contemporary. Score and parts. 35 pages. Benjamin Sajo #6072943. Published by Benjamin Sajo (A0.1018921). Fugue: Wear Pearls and Smile is, on the outset, a fast, rambunctious adventure for many voices playing at the same time. It was conceived as a pairing for the equally vivacious second symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven–his 250th birthday is this year–but can stand on its own as one of my hardest, most challenging works to cook up.This piece is dedicated to those forced to appear positive when internally they’re falling apart. The title is inspired by a quote that’s been with me for a while, Why is it that men can be bastards and women must wear pearls and smile? by Lynn Hecht Schafren, the celebrated American jurist famous for campaigning for gender equity in courts. I’m taking the quote out of its initial context, but the power of that quote, for me, exemplifies how hard it is to maintain a sense of emotional decorum and dignity when you’re authentically a hot mess. And what’s more of a musical hot mess than a fugue?There are two realities to this piece. I’ll quote Dmitri Shostakovich, from his autobiography: The rejoicing is forced, created under threat, […] It’s as if someone were beating you with a stick and saying, ‘Your business is rejoicing, your business is rejoicing,’ and you rise, shaky, and go marching off, muttering ‘Our business is rejoicing, our business is rejoicing.’ On the one hand, it is insincere happiness, cloying perhaps. But the other truth, I’ll quote Oscar Hammerstein II, from The King and I: While shivering in my shoes / I strike a careless pose / And whistle a happy tune / And no one ever knows, / I'm afraid. I forced myself, against all impulses of my current being, to forge happiness. This piece, with its origin being a mental puzzle (fugues are puzzles), it became a construct where I could lift myself up and regain a sense of purpose. Therefore, it is invented–out of a literal need to survive–pure, genuine happiness.Future Performances: If you are interested in performing this work, please e-mail me.ABOUT THE COMPOSER: Benjamin Sajo (b. 1988) is a Canadian composer of contemporary classical music, as well as an educator. Since developing a fiercely independent creative voice upon the completion of his studies at Western (2010) and McGill Universities (2013), he continues to find inspiration from the intersection of mythology, art, and nature upon the contemporary human experience. In 2019, he released his premiere album of original music, The Great War Sextet: Canadian War Poetry with Trombone & Strings , with support from the Ontario Arts Council. He is a member of SOCAN and the League of Canadian Composers.

Full Orchestra - Level 5 - Digital Download SKU: A0.1018924 Composed by Benjamin Harry Sajo. 20th Century,Contemporary. Score and parts. 76 pages. Benjamin Sajo #6072951. Published by Benjamin Sajo (A0.1018924). Fugue: Wear Pearls and Smile is, on the outset, a fast, rambunctious adventure for many voices playing at the same time. It was conceived as a pairing for the equally vivacious second symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven–his 250th birthday is this year–but can stand on its own as one of my hardest, most challenging works to cook up.This piece is dedicated to those forced to appear positive when internally they’re falling apart. The title is inspired by a quote that’s been with me for a while, Why is it that men can be bastards and women must wear pearls and smile? by Lynn Hecht Schafren, the celebrated American jurist famous for campaigning for gender equity in courts. I’m taking the quote out of its initial context, but the power of that quote, for me, exemplifies how hard it is to maintain a sense of emotional decorum and dignity when you’re authentically a hot mess. And what’s more of a musical hot mess than a fugue?There are two realities to this piece. I’ll quote Dmitri Shostakovich, from his autobiography: The rejoicing is forced, created under threat, […] It’s as if someone were beating you with a stick and saying, ‘Your business is rejoicing, your business is rejoicing,’ and you rise, shaky, and go marching off, muttering ‘Our business is rejoicing, our business is rejoicing.’ On the one hand, it is insincere happiness, cloying perhaps. But the other truth, I’ll quote Oscar Hammerstein II, from The King and I: While shivering in my shoes / I strike a careless pose / And whistle a happy tune / And no one ever knows, / I'm afraid. I forced myself, against all impulses of my current being, to forge happiness. This piece, with its origin being a mental puzzle (fugues are puzzles), it became a construct where I could lift myself up and regain a sense of purpose. Therefore, it is invented–out of a literal need to survive–pure, genuine happiness.Future Performances: If you are interested in performing this work, please e-mail me.ABOUT THE COMPOSER: Benjamin Sajo (b. 1988) is a Canadian composer of contemporary classical music, as well as an educator. Since developing a fiercely independent creative voice upon the completion of his studies at Western (2010) and McGill Universities (2013), he continues to find inspiration from the intersection of mythology, art, and nature upon the contemporary human experience. In 2019, he released his premiere album of original music, The Great War Sextet: Canadian War Poetry with Trombone & Strings , with support from the Ontario Arts Council. He is a member of SOCAN and the League of Canadian Composers.

Full Orchestra - Level 5 - Digital Download SKU: A0.755297 Composed by Sy Brandon. 20th Century,Contemporary,Folk. Score and parts. 157 pages. Sy Brandon #6067165. Published by Sy Brandon (A0.755297). This four-movement composition contains musical interpretations of four of Georgia O’Keeffe’s New Mexico paintings. The score prints on legal size paper and the parts on letter. I. From the Faraway Nearby The highly charged contrast of closely viewed foreground details and hugely distant horizons, which typified the New Mexican Views of O'Keeffe, was not a mere optical illusion. The large scale, bright light, and clear air of the region permitted one to see for the proverbial forever, and the juxtaposition of faraway and nearby was an integral aspect of desert vision. Soft dynamics and orchestration represent the faraway while the loud dynamics and orchestration represent the nearby. Near the end, the faraway and nearby begin to merge. II. Jimson Weed, White Flower No. 1 This painting depicts one of O'Keeffe's favorite subjects: a magnified flower. To her, the delicate blooms stood as some of the most overlooked pieces of naturally occurring beauty, objects that the bustling contemporary world ignored. So she made it her mission to highlight their complex structures, explaining: When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not. This movement is slow and lyrical reflecting the beauty of the close-up image. III. Red Hills and Bone O'Keeffe 's most effective composition of bones in the landscape appeared in 1941, with Red Hills and Bone; the large canvas is also among her most ambitions evocations of the arid country of which she was by then an owner, having purchase the house at Ghost Ranch the preceding year. In 1939, O'Keeffe had written of the bones as strangely more living than the animals walking around, and in the 1941 painting her response is given visual from. The minimalistic noodling represents the red hills and the bold triplets represent the mystique of the bone. IV. Ladder to the Moon             This painting shows a handmade wooden ladder suspended in the turquoise sky. In the background are the pitch-black Pedernal Mountains and a pearl colored half moon. This painting was very similar to a picture taken of O'Keeffe and her surroundings at Ghost Ranch. In the picture, a large wooden ladder is leaned against an outer wall of a patio from where it rises up into the sky with the Pedernal Mountains in the background. In Pueblo culture the ladder is used to symbolize the link between the Pueblos and cosmic forces. The fact that the ladder is pointed up in the sky may represent the link between nature and the cosmos. While there are motifs that depict specifics of the painting, such as the scale-wise ascending and descending figure for the crescent mood and rising arpeggios for the ladder, the focus of this movement is the spiritual element. The music rises and grows in intensity from a ground bass-like theme to a soaring ending.