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Back in 2002 I began to write my own light airy flute and guitar arrangement of the Ukrainian New Year's carol "Щедрик", or Carol of the Bells as we know it these days, as a gift for my wife. I got part-way into writing it and morphing it into a 4/4 trance tune (of all things), then set it aside and wrote a "Baroque/Bach" version of the carol instead ( "Belle Fugue" http://www.macjams.com/song/18042 ). So the "Belle Aire" sketch gathered dust for years...
until...
in November 2011 I met a local mandolin player (Kevin), who told me the "San Diego Mandolin Orchestra" group he was playing in ( http://www.myspace.com/sandiegomandolinorchestra ) had a Christmas concert coming up and they might be looking for new music for Mandolins and flute. This seemed like a fun opportunity to re-orchestrate something, learn about a new instrument (the mandolin), and possibly have a piece of my music performed live!
But I only had a few weeks to come up with something. I remembered this very short (half-completed) "holiday" piece from almost a decade ago, and started researching the mandolin. Oh wait... it is an ORCHESTRA, a whole FAMILY of instruments! Mandolin, Mandola, Octave-Mandolin, Mandolin-cello... I learned as much as I could about each instrument and its range and what clef each played in, then started reworking the music for these instruments. The flute's deceptive initial counter-melody (that makes the listener start wondering if this might not be Carol of the Bells at all) was already there and remained intact, but I added some embellishments, like adding a short swing-section, bouncing the melody between guitars and mandolins in the middle, and putting in some of the characteristic mandolin tremolos near the end.
Well, to make a long story short, Jim Trepasso, conductor of the orchestra very kindly accepted my score, and had his musicians start practicing it for the performance. On December 21st, 2011, my wife and I drove down to attend the concert, at the Coronado Public Library ( http://www.coronado.lib.ca.us ) . We offered to video-tape this and a few of the (more traditional) holiday pieces they played that evening, to give more exposure to the mandolin orchestra, and to the "Friends of the Coronado Library" who put on these concerts. The orchestra did an amazing job quickly learning and performing my piece for the concert, and the evening was a jam-packed success. Jim was embarrassingly generous with his introduction of me during the concert.
So, without further ado, here is a video recording of the San Diego Mandolin Orchestra performing "Belle Aire". And the Macjams audio recording here is the Garageband computerized rendition of the musical score itself (not the live performance) for comparison.
If the above video does not show up, just click/copy the following link to watch it on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMDCyKF0-Dc
Please visit the San Diego Mandolin Orchestra web site, buy some of their music, and go to your local library and support their concerts! Happy holidays, and may you have a bountiful new year!
My warmest thanks to Jim Trepasso for offering to have my music performed, to the Mandolin Orchestra musicians for practicing and performing so nicely, to Vanessa the flute player/Coronado librarian who helped set up the concert and played the flute part with such warmth, and to my wife who was half of our video-camera/roadie team, and always inspires me beyond words.
until...
in November 2011 I met a local mandolin player (Kevin), who told me the "San Diego Mandolin Orchestra" group he was playing in ( http://www.myspace.com/sandiegomandolinorchestra ) had a Christmas concert coming up and they might be looking for new music for Mandolins and flute. This seemed like a fun opportunity to re-orchestrate something, learn about a new instrument (the mandolin), and possibly have a piece of my music performed live!
But I only had a few weeks to come up with something. I remembered this very short (half-completed) "holiday" piece from almost a decade ago, and started researching the mandolin. Oh wait... it is an ORCHESTRA, a whole FAMILY of instruments! Mandolin, Mandola, Octave-Mandolin, Mandolin-cello... I learned as much as I could about each instrument and its range and what clef each played in, then started reworking the music for these instruments. The flute's deceptive initial counter-melody (that makes the listener start wondering if this might not be Carol of the Bells at all) was already there and remained intact, but I added some embellishments, like adding a short swing-section, bouncing the melody between guitars and mandolins in the middle, and putting in some of the characteristic mandolin tremolos near the end.
Well, to make a long story short, Jim Trepasso, conductor of the orchestra very kindly accepted my score, and had his musicians start practicing it for the performance. On December 21st, 2011, my wife and I drove down to attend the concert, at the Coronado Public Library ( http://www.coronado.lib.ca.us ) . We offered to video-tape this and a few of the (more traditional) holiday pieces they played that evening, to give more exposure to the mandolin orchestra, and to the "Friends of the Coronado Library" who put on these concerts. The orchestra did an amazing job quickly learning and performing my piece for the concert, and the evening was a jam-packed success. Jim was embarrassingly generous with his introduction of me during the concert.
So, without further ado, here is a video recording of the San Diego Mandolin Orchestra performing "Belle Aire". And the Macjams audio recording here is the Garageband computerized rendition of the musical score itself (not the live performance) for comparison.
If the above video does not show up, just click/copy the following link to watch it on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMDCyKF0-Dc
Please visit the San Diego Mandolin Orchestra web site, buy some of their music, and go to your local library and support their concerts! Happy holidays, and may you have a bountiful new year!
My warmest thanks to Jim Trepasso for offering to have my music performed, to the Mandolin Orchestra musicians for practicing and performing so nicely, to Vanessa the flute player/Coronado librarian who helped set up the concert and played the flute part with such warmth, and to my wife who was half of our video-camera/roadie team, and always inspires me beyond words.
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alackbass
Impressive piece and arrangement! And I'm very impressed with your willingness to study up and get familiar with the parameters of the ensemble you were writing for. And a big congratulations for getting your piece preformed.