SKU: HL.44007325

UPC: 884088245221. 9.0x12.0x0.173 inches. English-German-French-Dutch.

Colorado Springs was commissioned by the United States Air Force Academy Band, Lieutenant Steve Grimo, Commmander/Conductor. Colorado Springs, home of the USAF Academy, is set in spectacular landscape towards the southern end of the Rocky Mountains and is a popular tourist resort for skiing and hiking. The Academy plays an important part in the life of the area and serves as a base for the USAFA Band, one of the professional bands forming part of the musical life of the U.S. Air Force. The suite is in three movements: 1. The Springs (fanfare) - The Springs is the local residents' name for the town, and this first movement starts with a stirring fanfare for brass and percussion, opening with bold unison horns. The rest of the brass join in and woodwind add decorative figures. After a short change of style, the opening material reappears to close the movement. 2. Seven Falls - Seven Falls is a spectacular waterfall near to the town which cascades 181 feet in seven distinct steps down a solid cliff of pikes peak granite. In this movement, high woodwinds describe the sparkling water as it descends to a popular lookout post near the bottom of the falls. 3. Pikes Peak - To the north-west of the town and reaching an altitude 14,110 feet, Pikes Peak is the farthest east of the big peaks in the Rocky Mountain chain, which contributed to its early fame among explorers and pioneers, and made it the symbol of the 1859 Gold Rush to Colorado with the slogan, Pikes Peak or Bust. It is the second-most visited mountain in the world behind Japan's Mount Fuji. This atmospheric movement describes the majesty of the mountain and is based around the fanfare from the first movement. Opening on a solitary bassoon, it is not long before the main theme appears under bubbling woodwinds. The music reaches a passionate climax at which point the opening fanfare reappears to bring the whole work to a close.

SKU: HL.14072954

SKU: RM.MICH05708

ISBN 9790231057089.

SKU: CF.CM9707

ISBN 9781491160121. UPC: 680160918720. Key: Db major. John Gillespie Magee. Poem by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

Just weeks after his nineteenth birthday, John Gillespie Magee, Jr. wrote the poem High Flight while serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force. The year was 1941, and World War II was culminating toward its darkest chapters. Magee had just completed his seventh flight in the iconic Spitfire Mk I fighter plane, soaring to heights well above 30,000 feet. These high altitude exercises supplied his inspiration for the poem, which describes the long, delirious, burning blue and having touched the face of God. Tragically, Magee died in a training exercise just months after writing High Flight. His words, however, live on to lift our hearts and stir the imagination. After you have learned High Flight, ask yourself the following questions: Are you singing the text clearly and articulately? Are you properly stressing the important syllables and backing off of non-stressed syllables? Is there a sense of energy throughout the piece, in both the lyrical, flowing sections and the up-tempo, faster sections? Are you also singing with a sense of energy no matter what the dynamic marking? Are you singing phrases with proper breath support and a sense of rise and fall to the phrase?.
Just weeks after his nineteenth birthday, John Gillespie Magee, Jr. wrote the poem High Flight while serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force. The year was 1941, and World War II was culminating toward its darkest chapters. Magee had just completed his seventh flight in the iconic Spitfire Mk I fighter plane, soaring to heights well above 30,000 feet. These high altitude exercises supplied his inspiration for the poem, which describes “the long, delirious, burning blue” and having “touched the face of God.”Tragically, Magee died in a training exercise just months after writing High Flight. His words, however, live on to lift our hearts and stir the imagination. After you have learned High Flight, ask yourself the following questions: Are you singing the text clearly and articulately? Are you properly stressing the important syllables and backing off of non-stressed syllables? Is there a sense of energy throughout the piece, in both the lyrical, flowing sections and the up-tempo, faster sections? Are you also singing with a sense of energy no matter what the dynamic marking? Are you singing phrases with proper breath support and a sense of rise and fall to the phrase?

SKU: PR.11540431L

UPC: 680160689767.

The first time I saw an alpenglow, I had no idea what it was. It was the late 1980s, and I was at a music camp at the base of theRocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. A few of us got up in the middle of the night so we could hike to a vantage pointat the foot of Longs Peak, to watch the sun rise without any trees obstructing our view. Even though we had a few moreminutes to go before the sun breached the horizon, when I looked up at the face of Longs Peak, it was glowing intensely with amost beautiful peach-pink color. This enchanting vision lasted only about ten minutes, after which the color faded as the sunrose. Throughout the next thirty years, whenever I returned to the Rocky Mountain National Park, I would occasionally catchthis pre-dawn light show in all its glory.An alpenglow is an optical phenomenon that is visible on high altitude mountains. It happens twice daily, right before the sunrises and right after it sets. The earth’s atmosphere scatters the sun’s light, allowing particular wavelengths of light through andblanketing the mountains in rich hues of peach, pink, red, and purple.Alpenglow opens with First Light. This movement begins in the pre-dawn hour. The music starts simply and slowly, thengrows increasingly animated as the sky lightens and the horizon shimmers with color. The movement explodes in a massiveflurry of activity when the sun crosses the horizon; this energy eventually fades as the sun rises in the sky. In Arc of the Sun,we follow the sun as it energetically leaps and surges upwards in the sky. The music moves steadily upwards as it keeps pacewith the sun’s progress, then crests as the sun reaches its zenith. As the sun bends back down towards the earth, the musicfollows suit, getting lower in range and slower as the sun nears the horizon. In Radiant Glow, the sun slips under the horizon,giving way to a most radiant alpenglow. As the alpenglow fades and twilight envelops the earth, stars shimmer in the nightsky.-S.G.

SKU: HL.48186299

French saxophonist, Claude Georgel was born in 1959. He studied at the Nancy Conservatory where he became curious in the modern music heard today, written or improvised. His interests and expertise have led him to create many compositions, including Crise(n) for Alto Saxophone and Electronics. Crise(n) is the third volume in the composer's series, 'Altitudes'. The work is frequently incorporated to final year syllabuses at conservatoires. Composed in 2009, a typical performance of Crise(n) takes around three minutes and ten seconds. The piece is highly virtuosic, making use of complex rhyhtms, ornamentation, unusual performance directions, exploited sound techniques and other extended techniques. For all advanced saxophonists, Georgel's Crise(n) makes for a challenging, yet exciting performance work..