Hello and Welcome to our Spring Orchestra concert 2026. As our nation prepares to celebrate it's 250th birthday on July 4th of this year, I have chosen an American theme for our concert to help us celebrate. Each orchestra will present one selection that is truly American, and another selection from the standard orchestral repertoire. Below is a few notes about each piece. Again, thank you for joining us, and I hope you do enjoy our presentation!
Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 by J.S. Bach, arranged by Merle J. Isaac is one of his most recognizable pieces, and a part of a group of orchestral concerti to display the composer's style and ability to the Duke of Brandenburg in the hopes of securing a job as court composer in the city of Brandenburg. Believe it or not, he was not selected for the job!
Seven Nation Army was released by the band The White Stripes in 2003. Since then it has become a sports chant phenomenon that is sung in sports complexes across America and the entire globe!
Tales of Scheherazade was written in 1888 by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and arranged for school orchestras by Deborah Baker Monday. It gives a shorter version of the epic symphonic work that Rimsky-Korsakov wrote about Sultana Scheherazade and her efforts to delay inevitable doom for 1000 nights.
Ring of Fire is attributed to Johnny Cash as he is the performer of the the song. It is actually written by his wife, June Carter. Johnny Cash was a prominent voice in American Country music with his unmistakable vocal timber.
Bagatelle is from a set for five dance pieces written as a suite for piano trio (violin, cello, piano) by Antonin Dvorak in 1878. Like much of Dvorak's music, it is based in lyrical melodies and dance rhythms of Czech folk music.
Thriller was released as the title track for the album, also names Thriller in 1983. It became the best selling album that year, and has since then engrained itself into American culture since. There isn't an October since that year we have not heard this song!
The Red Pony is music written by Aaron Copland for a film based on a John Steinbeck Novel in 1948. Copland overcame religious and life bias of that time period to go on and become the father of the American Orchestral sound that still shapes American composers and movie music to this day.
I wrote Paul Revere's Ride to celebrate a fascination with the story of Paul Revere, and a poem by one of my favorite American poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It was originally written for string orchestra, and is the winner of the 2008 American String Teacher's of New Jersey composition competition. I orchestrated for full orchestra to complete American Revolution suite to help celebrate America 250. Victory at Yorktown is written just this year to complete this suite, and is a mash up for two fife tunes of that time, "The World Turned Upside Down" and "Yankee Doodle Dandy" (modern). "Yankee Doodle" was used by the British to mock colonists at the time, but became an anthem for the rebelling colonists. "The World Turned Upside Down" was the tune the British Fife band played while exiting Yorktown in defeat after Cornwallis' Surrender in their shock of losing the war to the colonists. The transition from "The World Turned Upside Down" to "Yankee Doodle Dandy", although musically simple, signifies the change in governing parties.
Adoration was originally written for organ by Florence Price in 1951. Price was the first African American woman to have had a piece of music played by a major American orchestra. This arrangement was orchestrated for small orchestra by Robert Jones.
The overture to the Barber of Seville was written by Gioacchino Rossini 1816. The opera was originally viewed as a failure by the first viewers, but went of to become a success! The opera itself has quite possible the world most famous overture! It features a brash, slow opening, a infamous worrisome quick melody, and thrilling end that should send us home whistling along and full of energy!
Or would you like .... an encore?