Joe Stollery

This piece came about as a commission from my music teacher to get the performers of Alford Academy's Concert Band and String Orchestra together, along with some university graduates, to perform a new piece for a gala concert, under the title of 'Practice-a-Thon!'. The funds from the concert would be raised to get a new grand piano for the school. For this concert, I decided to create a rhapsodic overture with separate episodes where the different instrumentalists could shine. The layout is as follows:

1. Introduction/Fanfare - A short introduction for full orchestra, leading into a brass fanfare in Bb mixolydian. This is followed by:

2. Air - A slow air for strings alone, adding the rest of the orchestra later, leading into:

3. Rhythmics - A fast, rhythmic section in minor key making use of the percussion and incorporating syncopation and irregular time-signatures to add to the excitement. This climaxes in the tonic major with the full orchestra.

4. Jig- At the same quaver speed as the preceding section, this is a ceilidh-style jig, with the melody performed over drones by violins first, and then horns.

5. Elegy/Interlude - Holding on a drone from the previous section, this short episode is slower, and more harmonically unstable, made up mostly of dissonant chords and timbral shifts.

What follows next is a recapitulation of some of the preceding movements:

6. Rhythmics - This returns in a different key, and the climax is modified to lead back into:

7. Air - This returns in the same key as before, but this time accompanied by the percussive rhythms, as well as some interjections from the preceding section.

8. Jig - This returns halfway through the air, and leads into a big climax where the air melody is played out by the full orchestra. The coda of the air is modified harmonically to add to the climax,, leading into the last return:

9. Fanfare - In the closing bars of the piece, the fanfare from the start returns to finish the piece on a high.

It took me around five months to write this piece, and it was a challenge at times, as I not only needed to understand how the different orchestral instruments work, but also had to take into account the grade and stamina of many of the more elementary players in the orchestra.

I later submitted this piece as part of my Advanced Higher Music composition portfolio. Although I now think it is rather juvenile, especially when compared to some of my later work, I still hold it here as my first orchestral piece I actually finished.

PERFORMANCES:

Première: 28 June 2010 - Alford Academy, Aberdeenshire - Alford Academy School Orchestra (dir. by the composer)