"Festive Dances"
English horn, Strings, and Timpani
Electronic demo here
My Oboe Concerto was written to be a personal challenge to help me become a better player of the instrument... and it certainly made me work!
"Festive Dances," though still challenging in some ways, was meant to be much more fun to play! Originally intended as the first movement of an English horn concerto, I've decided to release it as a stand-alone work. It could serve as a fun encore piece or even a competition work for ensembles that have "single-movement-only" concerto competitions. It could likely fit on any pops concert as its upbeat dancelike qualities would very much appeal to audiences more interested in that sort of music!
Written in Sonata form, the piece has three theme groups instead of the usual two and presents material in non-traditional time signatures. 8/8 and 7/8 give it the same sort of lilt you can find in traditional Greek dances (and, yes, I've toyed with the notion of asking to play this at the Pensacola Greek Fest!) and the technical requirements, while requiring the soloist to play up to a written high F, are fairly tame. Again, this work was meant to be fun for the experienced player.
"Festive Dances," was premiered by myself accompanied by the UWF "Runge Strings" orchestra under the baton of Leonid Yanovskiy in the fall of 2006. Festive Dances (Solo EH, Timp + Strings)
Orchestra Score and parts (PDF) - $75 English horn and Piano Reduction (PDFs) - $15
Scores
