Niels Marthinsen's Symphony No. 2 - Snapshot Symphony (2009). 1st movement Fiesta Mexicana: fortissimo accelerando (ca. 6 minutes) 2nd movement Arabian Nights: adagio intensivo e furioso (ca. 11 minutes) 3rd movement Great Fireworks in China: giocoso esplosivo e marcatissimo (ca. 8 minutes)   Programme note I’ve never been to Mexico and Arabia or to China. But I love the way those countries sound in Hollywood movies and inpop culture generally: When Clint Eastwood rides south of the border when Disney’s Alladin or Mulan takes me far east when arabic pop music roars past me out of the open windows of a car... and bull fighter music and the sound of acrobatic beat-em-up’s in John Woo’s Hong Kong karate movies – and so on: powerful images splashed all over my eye balls and ear drums. My recollections of this ethnic-pop-film-music has turned itself into a symphony. And I don’t even have to just remember what I have heard: A few internet clicks gives me access to incredible sound libraries containing live-and-kicking ethnic music from my three favorite countries just waiting to be put together in new combinations and energize my personal imagery.  The symphony is like a huge slide show – musical snapshots from my travels in the western pop culture versions of three exotic locations: Mexico Arabia and China – original and popular melodies welded together by my personal musical language and associations. I use all the effects of modern pling-plong-music plus a few of my own inventions to create a spectacular contemporary orchestral sound sporting a bee hive of melodies from either East or West played simultaneously in different keys and differents tempos at once while kept firmly in place by

(Edition for String Orchestra)-In a new arrangement for mature string groups Gliere's energetic dance movement again shows why it has become an icon of light classical programming for orchestras everywhere. From the ballet The Red Poppy thedeliberate opening in the low strings accelerating to the frenzied Cossack-style dance makes this work a captivating experience for your students.

Danzas is a suite inspired by the music of Latin America. It is a great choice for a Pops or an outdoor concert and is playable by amateur and student ensembles as well as professional orchestras. The work consists of three movements each devoted to the musicalculture of a different country: 1. Argentina 2. Brazil 3. Cuba. It may be performed as a whole or individual movements may be played instead as an opener/ closer.

Easy Pops Specials For Strings-Kids love to play the energetic fiddling style of Celtic music that continues to be a hit with the incredible success of both the Lord of the Dance and Riverdance stage productions. With this new arrangement geared for developing orchestras you can perform the exciting contemporary stylings of this traditional music. It's tuneful rhythmic and fun to teach.

Volume 1-Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) is known for his unique composition style. Incorporating complex rhythms harmony melodies and his passion for ornithology his Éclairs Sur L'Au-Delà for Orchestra is no exception to the composer's popular distinctive style. Composed between 1987-1991  Éclairs Sur L'Au-Delà was one of the composer's last works with the premiere occuring six months after his death. The work includes Messiaen's popular compositional techniques such as his modes of limited transposition and the use of birdsong.Messiaen's piece for orchestra is divided in to eleven movements and a typical performance lasts about one hour. Éclairs Sur L'Au-Delà is essential to all advanced orchestras seeking to expand and vary their repertoire.

The latest in a series of pieces written for CoMA string players  Bee Haven is a sound environment an imaginary outdoor space populated by plants flowers and bees. The sound of honeybee humming is the main focus of the work; around this the bees’ ‘haven’ (a living environment free from agricultural poisons and habitat destruction) is created through quiet air noise and gentle brushing of the instruments. There are no events in the piece save one brief flurry of rain; placing themselves within it listeners become part of the imagined space for the duration of the work.

Score-'A Colorful Symphony' is based on a chapter from Norton Juster's popular book for children 'The Phantom Tollbooth' in which a little boy enters a magic land where an orchestra and its conductor play the colours into the worldeach day. Rodriguez's setting for Narrator and Orchestra has become a musical classic in its own right and is regularly performed by major Orchestras.

This popular march was written for the film 'The Dam Busters' about the wartime exploits of the R.A.F.'s 617 squadron and their attempts to destroy the dams in Germany's industrial heartland using the 'bouncing bomb' a secret weapon invented by Barnes-Wallis. No secret weapons are required to perform this arrangement just a reasonably able orchestra! Saxophone parts are provided as alternatives (or additions) to the horn parts. The 3rd violin doubles the viola (where necessary at the octave) and either may be omitted.Duration: 4 minutes Orchestration2 Flutes 2 Oboes 3 Clarinets in Bb 2 Bassoons 2 Horns in F (or Alto saxes in Eb or Tenorsaxes in Bb) 3 Trumpets in Bb 2 Trombones Tuba Timpani Percussion (Triangle Cymbals Side Drum Bass drum) Strings (Violin 1 Violin 2 Viola or Violin 3 Cello Bass)

Blue Tango by Leroy Anderson was a #1 hit in 1951 juxtaposing the charismatic melody over a traditional tango pulse. The work captured the spirit of an era.At the height of his career in the mid-1930s Leroy Anderson began arranging for Arthur Fiedler's Boston Pops Orchestra. Later Fiedler encouraged him to write his own tunes for the Pops. His compositions more than 50 in number virtually define the sound of the contemporary American pops orchestra.

Symphony no. 5 is one of Glazunov's most popular and most frequently performed works. Although it is obviously in the tradition of the new St Petersburg school (and especially in that of Alexander Borodin) its structure andorchestration are rather unusual. Furthermore it contains some magnificent polyphonic passages.

The Frog (Frøen) for Narrator and Orchestra (2009). Text by Carl Quist Møller. Commissioned by Aarlborg Symphony Orchestra. A crazy liar story about the first love frogs turning into royal Africans and a lobster which is really a submarine. The Frog is written for children’s concerts for children between five and ten years old. The narrator reads the story while the orchestra plays in the background. Occasionally the orchestra plays longer section without narrator; these sections are commenting on the story.The sections without narrator can be performed as a10 minutes long orchestral work. The music is a wild visually evocative all fun-mixture of modern pop- and dance-music African folk music and Western European avant-garde music.  

Easy Pop Specials For Strings-This evergreen song by the legendary Roy Orbison has become an icon in pop music history instantly recognized from the opening riff and driving drum beat. Your students no matter what age will want to play it again and again.

With its remake in the film Sister Act this pop classic has all the trademark hooks that work great for a pop string group. The sixties/Motown feel is fun and easy to play. Dur: 2:15

Composer's Program Note Repertoire operas occationally have orchestral suites: Bits and pieces of overture interlude etc. tied upin a bouquet of 'schönste Tränen'. Contemporary opera usually wither after the first season so the focusis on getting people to come and have a sniff before it's too late. Consequently it seemed obvious to meto start making orchestral excerpts from my operas that are meant to be played before the premiere (andafter please); I call them 'opera trailers' when they're substantial enough to be considered independent works and 'opera demos' when they're relatively short and moreappetizer-ish. SNOW WHITE'S MIRROR is a full scale two act dramatic opera written for the Danish National Opera. The opera is a modern re-telling for grown-ups of the brothers Grimm's fairy tale: Snow White is a self-centered teenage narcissist and the villain of the opera; she ends up loosing everyone but herself either because she kills them or because they decide they can't stand being around her anymore. But apparently she's o.k. with that...The music is intended for a large audience: it's basically pop music done with all the craftmanship of aclassical composer who's equally at home with large scale symphonic form avantgarde technique opera singing - and modern pop. The Trailer is in three movements. It contains three sections of the opera; the prelude an interlude close to the beginning of the second act and the final scene but one. It's a gloomy sort of trailer starting out in grand title sequence style moving on to a decidedly odd piece where Snow White find her way to the dwarfs (who're creepy junkies doing pornography to get money to buy dope) and ending in kind of an eerie rejection mood: Everyone still alive walks out on Snow White singing 'skin as white as snow hands red with blood soul as black as ivory'.(NM 2010)

This is the last of nearly 100 operettas created by French composer Jacques Offenbach a native of Germany whose works were most prominent in the latter half of the nineteenth century. His three-act drama Les Contes d'Hoffmann (The Tales of Hoffmann) which includes a prologue and epilogue recounts dramatic stories of passion murder and revenge. Left incomplete at the composer's death the operetta debuted in 1881 and remains popular to this day for its many memorable melodies.A masterpiece of French Romanticism Les Contes d'Hoffmann embodies Offenbach's wish to transcend the limitations of his popularoperettas and achieve success among the lofty heights of grand Opera. This imaginative score presents an artful blend of fantasy emotion and the supernatural as well as elements of satire and the grotesque. Hoffmann the narrator and protagonist relates three stories to his drinking companions. The tales concern Olympia who is revealed as a mechanical doll; Antonia a gifted vocalist in danger of singing herself to death; and Giulietta a Venetian courtesan who uses a magic mirror to purloin others' reflections. Reproduced from an authoritative score this edition offers musicians and music lovers a modestly priced edition of Offenbach's enduring work.