The saxophone is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to produce a sound wave inside the instrument's body. The pitch is controlled by opening and closing holes in the body to change the effective length of the tube. The holes are closed by leather pads attached to keys operated by the player. Saxophones are made in various sizes and are almost always treated as transposing instruments. A person who plays the saxophone is called a saxophonist or saxist.
The Pomp and Circumstance Marches are a series of five marches for orchestra composed by Edward Elgar, together with a sixth march created from sketches. The marches were dedicated to his friends including composer Granville Bantock and organists George Robertson Sinclair, Ivor Atkins and Percy Hull.
"Greensleeves" is a traditional English folk song. A broadside ballad by the name "A Newe Northen Dittye of ye Ladye Greene Sleves" was registered by Richard Jones at the London Stationers' Company in September 1580, and the tune is found in several late 16th-century and early 17th-century sources, such as Ballet's MS Lute Book and Het Luitboek van Thysius, as well as various manuscripts preserved in the Seeley Historical Library in the University of Cambridge.
The baritone saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of instruments, larger than the tenor saxophone, but smaller than the bass. It is the lowest-pitched saxophone in common use — the bass, contrabass and subcontrabass saxophones are relatively uncommon. Like all saxophones, it is a single-reed instrument. It is commonly used in concert bands, chamber music, military bands, big bands, and jazz combos. It can also be found in other ensembles such as rock bands and marching bands. Modern baritone saxophones are pitched in E♭.
Armenian Dances is a musical piece for concert band, written by Alfred Reed (1921–2005). It is a four-movement suite of which Part I comprises the first movement and Part II comprises the remaining three. The two parts comprise a full-length symphony. Each part consists of a number of Armenian folk songs from the collection of Komitas Vardapet (1869–1935), an Armenian ethnomusicologist.
Václav Nelhýbel was a Czech-American composer, mainly of works for student performers.
English Folk Song Suite is one of English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams' most famous works. It was first published for the military band as Folk Song Suite and its premiere was given at Kneller Hall on 4 July 1923, conducted by Lt Hector Adkins. The piece was then arranged for full orchestra in 1924 by Vaughan Williams' student Gordon Jacob and published as English Folk Song Suite. The piece was later arranged for British-style brass band in 1956 by Frank Wright and published as English Folk Songs Suite. All three versions were published by Boosey & Hawkes; note the use of three different titles for the three different versions. The suite uses the melodies of nine English folk songs, six of which were drawn from the collection made by Vaughan Williams' friend and colleague Cecil Sharp.
Walter Sinclair Hartley was an American composer of contemporary classical music.
The E-flat clarinet is a member of the clarinet family, smaller than the more common B♭ clarinet and pitched a perfect fourth higher. It is typically considered the sopranino or piccolo member of the clarinet family and is a transposing instrument in E♭ with a sounding pitch a minor third higher than written. The E-flat clarinet has a total length of about 49 centimetres (19 in).
Four Scottish Dances (Op.59) is an orchestral set of light music pieces composed by Malcolm Arnold in 1957 for the BBC Light Music Festival.
St Paul's Suite in C major, originally titled simply Suite in C, is a popular work for string orchestra by the English composer Gustav Holst. Finished in 1913, but not published until 1922 due to revisions, it takes its name from St Paul's Girls' School in Hammersmith, London. Holst served as the school's "music master" from 1905 to 1934 and was grateful to the school for building a soundproof studio for him. The suite is one of many pieces he wrote for the school's students.
The First Suite in E♭ for Military Band, Op. 28, No. 1 is written by the English composer Gustav Holst. It is considered one of the cornerstone masterworks in the concert band repertoire. Officially premiered in 1920 at the Royal Military School of Music, the manuscript was originally completed in 1909. Along with the subsequent Second Suite in F for Military Band, written in 1911 and premiered in 1922, the First Suite convinced many other prominent composers that serious music could be written specifically for band.
Lincolnshire Posy is a musical composition by Percy Grainger for concert band commissioned in 1937 by the American Bandmasters Association. Considered by John Bird, the author of Grainger's biography, to be his masterpiece, the 16-minute-long work has six movements, each adapted from folk songs that Grainger had collected on a 1905–1906 trip to Lincolnshire, England. In a similar fashion to these folk songs, many of the movements are in strophic form. The work debuted with three movements on March 7, 1937 performed by the Milwaukee Symphonic Band, a group composed of members from bands including the Blatz Brewery and Pabst Blue Ribbon beer factory worker bands in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The euphonium repertoire consists of solo literature and parts in band or, less commonly, orchestral music written for the euphonium. Since its invention in 1843, the euphonium has always had an important role in ensembles, but solo literature was slow to appear, consisting of only a handful of lighter solos until the 1960s. Since then, however, the breadth and depth of the solo euphonium repertoire has increased dramatically.
Gary Alan Kulesha is a Canadian composer, pianist, conductor, and educator. Since 1995, he has been Composer Advisor to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. He has been Composer-in-Residence with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony (1988–1992) and the Canadian Opera Company (1993–1995). He was awarded the National Arts Centre Orchestra Composer Award in 2002.
October is a contemporary piece for concert band approximately six minutes in duration that was written by Eric Whitacre in 2000.
Colonial Song is a musical composition written by Australian composer Percy Grainger. Although Grainger created versions for different types of musical ensembles, its most commonly used version today is for concert band.
Composed in 1957, Symphonic Songs for Band is one of Robert Russell Bennett's most famous compositions for wind band. The work was commissioned for the National Intercollegiate Band by Kappa Kappa Psi and Tau Beta Sigma, national honorary band fraternity and sorority, as part of the two organizations' commissioning program. Since its premiere, it has become among the most frequently performed works in the wind band repertoire. It is considered to be a cornerstone of the band literature.
The woodwind section, which consists of woodwind instruments, is one of the main sections of an orchestra or concert band. Woodwind sections contain instruments given Hornbostel-Sachs classifications of 421 and 422, but exclude 423
Children's March: Over the Hills and Far Away was written by Percy Grainger as his first original work for band.
