trmpt_chica

Hello Mr. Laureano How are you doing? How is your family? I hope their healthy! (the one down fall of band is if one person gets sick...we ALL get sick) Im doing fine and dandy like always. I go on Spring break today! yes! I learned how to double tounge thanks to my french horn friend (whose very cute ) ...hes very pessimistic and sorta scary everyone says he scary because he doesnt talk alot but he talks to me alot...
He tutors me and helps me on my trumpet. He may be scary but really a dork at heart


Well i bet your wondering about my topic, well next years show for my marching band is Belshazzar's feast... by William Walton. I was wondering if anyone knew about the show (you always have great comments!)
Does anyone know where i could happen to be able to find a recording of it? I would love to hear this recording so i could become known to the music so far, ive only found bits and pieces of each song! It would be much apppreciated
~*~*Chica*~*~

Manny Laureano

TC,

You had to be reading my mind because I actually thought about you yesterday and wondered how you and your band were doing! So, i guess you answered my psychic call. A little bit like Luke and Leia!

Anyway, the family is doing well, thanks for asking. Music, drama, and baseball seem to be what our house is revolving around. My daughter will be involved in a musical production of "The Secret Garden" and my son will have a couple of roles in "The Crucible" by Arthur Miller.

Belshazzar's Feast for marching band? Now I've heard everything! That's a brilliant, exciting piece by a British composer named Sir William Walton. It's an oratorio. That means it has parts for a chorus and, in this case, baritone soloist. No, silly, not baritone horn! A male singer with a fairly low voice.

There is a very festive section that ends the piece after the announcement of Belshazzar the King's death.

It is most likely that is the section they're going to use if any. I'm hard pressed to imagine any other section. It's a great piece and if you decide to get a C for yourself make sure it's Walton's piece because the Finnish composer, Jean Sibelius, also wrote a piece by the same name.

Thanks for writing. It's always a pleasure to hear about the goings on in sunny California as reported by you, our west coast correspondent.

ML

trumpetmike

That's what I thought - then a quick search on Wikipedia finds that it "was adapted for use by the Star of Indiana Drum and Bugle Corps (Bloomington, IN), placing 3rd at the 1990 Drum Corps International World Championships with a High Brass Award."

My favourite idea from the original work is the addition of the brass groups, from a suggestion to Sir Thomas Beecham. Again, from Wikipedia


"At first the work seemed avant-garde because of its extrovert writing and musical complexity, although it is always firmly tonal. The addition of the brass bands was suggested by the conductor Thomas Beecham; the bands were on hand anyway for a performance of Berlioz’s Te Deum, and Beecham said to the young Walton: "As you’ll never hear the thing again, my boy, why not throw in a couple of brass bands?"."

trumpet blower88

Heres some recordings of Star of Indiana playing it:

Opening Statment:
http://www.cookgroup.com/star/media/mp3/90open.mp3

Closing Statment:
http://www.cookgroup.com/star/media/mp3/90close.mp3

Heres the whole site wth more info about the show:
http://www.cookgroup.com/star/drum_corps/1990.html


EDIT: I just realized I have the whole 1990 DCI season on CD with the entire show, unfortunatly I'm not real great with computers and don't know how to do things like sending the file to someone else... I'll work on it and see if I can figure it out.

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-David Jacques