Travis J. Weller

What a couple of weeks!!! It has been absolutely humbling to have so many performances of “American Visions” over the past few weeks – my sincere thanks to many friends and colleagues who made the piece a part of their spring concert.  My thanks to Drew Fennell and the River City Youth Brass Band for their world debut performance of “A Frontier Fought and A City Found” at the Spring Concert “A Pittsburgh Celebration” last Sunday evening.  It was an honor to write for such a great musician and conductor like Drew, and a group of outstanding musicians in the ensemble.

So those of you who follow my survival on Facebook hopefully have realized by now – I am a huge Star Wars fan.  A friend of a friend was actually worried about me for awhile thinking I was participating in a cult that believed the “force” was a religion, and George Lucas was a “high priest” (thanks alot Bob!).  But no, just a huge fan who enjoys it for what it is – a great story that took a young child on a small farm to a galaxy far, far away… Read more…

I was honored to be asked by friend and colleague Drew Fennell to write for the River City Youth Brass Band.  They will present “A Frontier Fought and A City Found” on May 31, 2009 of this year.  The piece is a historical sonic potrait of the battles fought between the British and the French during the 1750′s around Pittsburgh.  You can read all of the program notes about it by clicking here.  I had the opportunity to meet several of the groups members at the Diocesean Honor Band Festival in January and over this past week at the PMEA Region Band held at Ambridge.  I am eagerly looking forward to this debut.  Drew is a great musician, and it is an honor to have him wave the stick and bring this music to life with such a great group of kids.  I chuckled out loud after seeing one of the French Horn students’ sweatshirt last Thursday.  It read -  “Rive City Youth Brass Band: Real Heavy Metal”.  This is going to be awesome!  My thanks to Drew for his musical guidance in orchestration, and to my neighbor Dr. Daniel Barr for the books and resource information he provided!

Additionally, I recently received a recording of Pirates!, a multi-movement work that will be available from FJH in the Summer of 2009.  The recording is from the Nassau Division 4 Honor Band that Drew conducted back in January.  If you get the chance, click here to here this group of freshmen and sophomores swashbuckling away!  The students did a wonderful job under Drew’s conducting.  My thanks to Drew and the Directors who programmed this piece for their festival!