Item Number: TU.CBREA1
To celebrate the President's 100th Birthday remembrance on February 6, 2011, the City of Dixon commissioned this work for Symphonic Band and Narrator, as a gift of love from his hometown. The narration, gathered from his autobiography, "Ronald Reagan, An American Life" takes us from his initial remembrances of Dixon to his first audition with Warner Brothers Studios in 1939. As with his delightfully written reminiscence, the composition is laced with gratitude, fond recollections, and humorous anecdotes concerning his years growing up in the Illinois farmland. (Admittedly, one of the more delightful moments in the compositional process for me was a chance to do a little historical "borrowing," incorporating not only the beautiful Illinois State Song, but also the 1930's era Eureka College Hymn and the Eureka College Fight Song, the very tunes probably heard by a young football player named "Dutch" Reagan while attending college there.).
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