CELEBRATION, 1998 (commission: Washington and Lee University)

Duration, 7:30 minutes

for Brass Quintet

MOVEMENTS:

The Colonnade

Evening by the Chapel

Festival of Memories

CELEBRATION was commissioned by Washington and Lee University for the 250th Anniversary. It is dedicated to Presidents John Wilson and John Elrod. Washington and Lee University is a place where the highest intellectual achievement and the cutting edge of curiosity exist side by side with a strong love of sentiment and tradition. In honor of this engaging duality, this work encompasses both the intellectual and a search for the new, along with the sentimental and historical. The first movement mixes an almost early music sound that might represent the structures of the Colonnade with more contemporary sounds of celebration and praise. Evening by the Chapel is reminiscent of old hymns and chants that might have drifted through the Chapel windows on a summer's evening in the days of Robert E. Lee, while existing in a freer form. Festival of Memories is a fast moving maze in perpetual motion in which there are some familiar W & L phrases to be discovered.

Performances:

Concert at Caves, Chesterland Community Church, CIM New Music Ensemble, 2/28/99

Washington and Lee U, 250th Anniversary Convocation, Institute Brass Quintet 9/9/98