Travis J. Weller

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!

The end of October to now has been a bit of a blur – football playoffs, honors band auditions, KSU work, finishing up two new pieces and digging in on a third one, and the big news the birth of my son.  He joins me awash in a sea of estrogen – but if you have met my daughters and my wife there really is no greater ocean to be around.  My apologies for being gone so long.  A big thank you again to all who participated in the Blog Carnival last month.

One of the more interesting conversations I had over the past month was in regards to who is in fact next? ESPN’s The Magazine asks this same question each year as they look for the next greatest thing to come along in sports.  Dr. Pisano and I had this conversation a little over two weeks ago.  There is always a passing of the torch that occurs in any profession.  Sometimes it is graceful, and sometimes it is not.  Sometimes leaders make awesome exits at the top of their game (take James Keane last year at the Midwest Clinic with the Illinois Wind Ensemble), and sometimes they hold on too long (not to mention any names like Al Davis and the glorious debacle that is the Raiders).  Is there another Alfred Reed or Clifton Williams? What about a Kenneth Bloomquist or John Bourgeois?  And I say that with realization that there will never be another, but will there be someone that will accept the mantle and has earned the respect of our profession to follow in their legacy?

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The morning was calm.  Too calm.  After taking one last drink of coffee, I picked up my scores, baton, and tuner and began walking towards the podium.  In just seconds part of my middle school band would descend upon our rehearsal room eager to learn and play music (or maybe it was just the sugar from the snack line at lunch).  But I never made it to the podium.  Suddenly a completely refurbished alto clarinet burst into flame (it had been rebuilt and sent to me from another district but smelled of smoke…).  It quickly consumed two chairs, my Wenger catalog (that was sad…), and the rain stick.  I realized the horror of it all – MY MIDDLE SCHOOL BAND ROOM WAS ON FIRE.

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The pieces have been saved from our band rooms, but there are plenty of you out there who didn’t realize MY BAND ROOM IS ON FIRE! There is still time to make a save, as the fire is still burning. Join in on the conversation and save a piece of music (just no more than seven). As you can tell by the list below, a lot of friends and colleagues made some tough (but great) choices in an effort to preserve our music. Hats off to Holst, Alfred Reed, and Frank Ticheli who were the composers mentioned the most often. First Suite in Eb and The Pines of Rome were also a favorite in terms of singular pieces. I find it very rewarding to find some of the hidden gems in the literature listed below (Nelson’s Courtly Airs and Dances, Carter’s Overture for Winds, Reed’s Rushmore). Since writing this post, I have discovered several more pieces that I probably could not live without (Selections from the “Danseyre” arranged by Patrick Dunnigan and Ticheli’s Symphony No. 2). As far as noticeable exceptions – The Stars and Stripes Forever (I guess we all just figured we could buy a new edition by Brion and Schissel), 2^nd Suite for Military Band in F (No love for their second masterpiece by Holst), and Festive Overture (Shostakovich can really get the juices flowing) really come to mind quickly for not making the first list. Looking at notable composers left off the list – the absence of writers like Mark Camphouse, James Curnow, and James Barnes are very surprising to me. Timothy Mahr, Samuel Hazo, and David Gillingham definitely deserve to be saved at some point – it would be interesting to see where the those gentlemen would end up if this list was done five years from now and songs like Endurance, Ride!, and Galactic Empires get more exposure. So in no particular order, here is what was saved when MY BAND ROOM IS ON FIRE!…

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