Composers & Schools in Concert
Composers & Schools in Concert provides high school students with hands-on experience in the professional field of music composition through composer commissions, workshops, and a contemporary score library for young performers.
The CSIC Score Library contains pieces by contemporary composers that are particularly suited, yet challenging and innovative, for youth ensembles. Every score is vetted and composer participation in the score library is by invitation. The aim is to promote awareness of contemporary music and help educators easily find music by living composers.
The CSIC Score Library contains pieces by contemporary composers that are particularly suited, yet challenging and innovative, for youth ensembles. Every score is vetted and composer participation in the score library is by invitation. The aim is to promote awareness of contemporary music and help educators easily find music by living composers.
Salt Marsh Rag
I was contacted in 2013 by Lisa Oman, CSIC Executive Director, and Nick Benavides, Program Director. They expressed an interest in Salt Marsh Rag, after discovering the score through the American Music Center in New York City, and asked for my permission to have it in the CSIC Score Library. As Lisa told me, "There is nothing else like it in our library."
This piece, for five wind instruments and rhythm section, is reasonably easy to play and can be performed by high school, college, professional, and community ensembles.
This piece, for five wind instruments and rhythm section, is reasonably easy to play and can be performed by high school, college, professional, and community ensembles.
Salt Marsh Rag has an early jazz feeling and a good amount of humor. It is meant to be fun and something that is distinctly different for performers and audiences. While this rag draws upon American roots music and is intended to sound old, there is a playful juxtaposition of old and new. Score demo by David Arivett.
The score was originally conceived for woodwind quintet (with alto flute). Alternate parts are provided for an assortment of commonly-used wind instruments. This enables the music to be played by many combinations of instruments such as saxes & brass, brass ensemble, sax section, clarinet ensemble, woodwind quintet, or a creative blend of tone colors.
Another performance possibility is to have two (or more) musicians on each wind instrument part. This option -- with either same or different instruments on a part -- is an easy way for larger ensembles to perform this music.
Sheet Music Plus
Composers & Schools in Concert collaborated with Sheet Music Plus (the largest online retailer of sheet music) in 2015 to create a collection of music by CSIC-affiliated composers. Salt Marsh Rag was selected by CSIC, along with 14 additional pieces of mine, for the Composers and Schools Catalog at Sheet Music Plus. The Salt Marsh Rag score ($10) and set of parts ($10) are sold separately.