Born in Buffalo, New York, Rossano Galante received his Bachelor of Arts Degree in Trumpet performance from SUNY Buffalo in 1992. That same year, he was one of nineteen people from around the world to be accepted to the University of Southern California’s Film Scoring Program. He studied with the late Jerry Goldsmith (known for soundtracks to Star Trek, The Omen, Planet of the Apes, and Alien). In 1999, Mr. Galante moved to California to pursue a career in film composition and orchestration. Since then, he has worked with two-time Oscar-nominated composer Marco Beltrami, Christophe Beck, Brian Tyler, and Wolfram de Marco.

Mr. Galante has served as orchestrator for overt sixty studio films including, A Quiet Place, Logan, Wolverine, Charlie's Angels, 3:10 to Yuma, A Good Day to Die Hard, Trouble with the Curve, The Thing, Final Destination 5, Don’t be Afraid of the Dark, Knowing, Max Payne, The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Live Free or Die Hard, Red Eye, The Tuxedo, Tuesdays with Morrie, among many others.      

This dynamic opener was written in a romantic/heroic style, featuring sweeping and lush melodies along with brilliant brass fanfares and woodwind flourishes.

Sir Malcolm Arnold (21 October 1921, Northampton, England – 23 September 2006, Norfolk, England) was a British composer and trumpeter. 

Malcolm Arnold was born in Northampton to a family of shoemakers. As a rebellious teenager, he was attracted to the creative freedom of jazz. After seeing Louis Armstrong play in Bournemouth, he took up the trumpet at the age of 12 and 5 years later, won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music (RCM). At the RCM, he studied composition with Gordon Jacob and the trumpet with Ernest Hall. In 1941, he joined the London Philharmonic Orchestra as second trumpet and became principal trumpet in 1943. 

In 1944, he volunteered for military service, but after he found out the army wanted to put him in a military band, he shot himself in the foot to get back to civilian life. After a season as principal trumpet with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, he returned to the London Philharmonic in 1946, where he remained until 1948 to become a full-time composer. 

Malcolm Arnold began his career playing trumpet professionally; by age thirty, his life was devoted to composition. He was bracketed with Britten and Walton as one of the most sought-after composers in Britain. His natural melodic gift earned him a reputation as a composer of light music in works such as his sets of Welsh, English, Scottish, Irish, and Cornish Dances, and his scores to the St Trinian's films and Hobson's Choice. Arnold was a relatively conservative composer of tonal works, but a prolific and popular one. He acknowledged Hector Berlioz as an influence, and several commentators have drawn a comparison with Jean Sibelius. 

He was knighted in 1993 for his service to music. He received honorary doctorates from the University of Exeter (1969), University of Durham (1982), University of Leicester (1984), Miami University of Ohio (1989), University of Winchester (1983), and the University of Northampton (2006). 

Malcolm Arnold regarded Robert Burns as one of the greatest of poets, and has expressed the hope that his own enjoyment of the work of the remarkable Scotsman, as reflected in this music, will encourage others to read him. The overture has a well-defined programme, though one’s response to it is by no means wholly dependent on the literary background.

Robert Burns poem, Tam O’Shanter, was written in 1791. It is commonly accepted as one of the poet’s finest works, and is the grimly humorous legend of a hard drinker who ignores his wife’s warning that he will one day be “catch’d wi’ warlocks” for his misdeeds. Late one momentous night, in tempest and roaring thunder, he sets out recklessly from the inn and drives his mare, Meg, on the homeward road. When they reach the haunted kirk, they witness a wild party of witches and warlocks, with many ghastly trimmings that Burns catalogues in detail:

With more o' horrible and awful,

Which even to name would be unlawful.

One dancer, wearing a garment “in longitude tho’ sorely scanty” (a cutty-sark in the native Doric), pleases Tam so well that he cries out “Well done, cutty-sark!” In an instant all is dark, and the hellish legion pursues him. If he reaches the bridge he is safe, for the fiends cannot cross running water. He escapes narrowly – but his gallant mare loses her tail, which had been grasped by a witch. The moral, embodied in the last lines of the poem is that one should remember Tam O’Shanter when tempted by thought of drink and cutty-sarks:

Now, who this tale of truth shall read,

Each man, and mother’s son, take heed:

Whenever to drink you are inclined,

Or cutty sarks run in your mind,

Think! you may buy joys over dear:

Remember Tam o’ Shanter’s mare.

The overture begins slowly with unison forming a background for characteristic woodwind and brass quips that establish the atmosphere. Clarinets put in a bagpipey drone fifth; piccolo whistles a fragment of melody with a Scottish flavour; bassoons with inebriated rhythm and copious “Scotch snap”, able along; muted brass slithers in glissandi (a recurring device). Soon, with growing velocity, Tam is on his wild ride into the storm. Lightening flashes and thunder roars, with gong, cymbals, and drums much in evidence. Tam gallops harder and harder, cracking his whip. Brass and drums suddenly lead to shivering string tremolos, and Tam watches the impious dance. Burns tells us that this is no new cotillion from France, “but hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys and reels”. The Scottish character of the music is evident. “Weel done, Cutty-sark!” cries Tam, in a trombone solo that all but articulates the words – and the devilish hunt is up. It comes to a sudden end and there is a short scud of woodwind solos (Tam disappearing in the distance) ending in a high trilling note on the first violins. Flutes and clarinets, perhaps sarcastically, point the moral of the story and with a terrific flurry, the overture ends.

Tam O’Shanter was first performed at a Henry Wood Promenade Concert on 17 August 1955, with Malcolm Arnold conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. It was received with tremendous enthusiasm!

Here is the modern English translation of the poem from its original 1791 Scottish-English (note that the rhyming scheme isn't quite a smooth as the original). 

When the peddler people leave the streets,
And thirsty neighbours, neighbours meet;
As market days are wearing late,
And folk begin to take the road home,
While we sit boozing strong ale,
And getting drunk and very happy,
We don’t think of the long Scots miles,
The marshes, waters, steps and stiles,
That lie between us and our home,
Where sits our sulky, sullen dame (wife),
Gathering her brows like a gathering storm,
Nursing her wrath, to keep it warm.

This truth finds honest Tam o' Shanter,
As he from Ayr one night did canter;
Old Ayr, which never a town surpasses,
For honest men and bonny lasses.

Oh Tam, had you but been so wise,
As to have taken your own wife Kate’s advice!
She told you well you were a waster,
A rambling, blustering, drunken boaster,
That from November until October,
Each market day you were not sober;
During each milling period with the miller,
You sat as long as you had money,
For every horse he put a shoe on,
The blacksmith and you got roaring drunk on;
That at the Lords House, even on Sunday,
You drank with Kirkton Jean till Monday.
She prophesied, that, late or soon,
You would be found deep drowned in Doon,
Or caught by warlocks in the murk,
By Alloway’s old haunted church.

Ah, gentle ladies, it makes me cry,
To think how many counsels sweet,
How much long and wise advice
The husband from the wife despises!

But to our tale :- One market night,
Tam was seated just right,
Next to a fireplace, blazing finely,
With creamy ales, that drank divinely;
And at his elbow, Cobbler Johnny,
His ancient, trusted, thirsty crony;
Tom loved him like a very brother,
They had been drunk for weeks together.
The night drove on with songs and clatter,
And every ale was tasting better;
The landlady and Tam grew gracious,
With secret favours, sweet and precious;
The cobbler told his queerest stories;
The landlord’s laugh was ready chorus:
Outside, the storm might roar and rustle,
Tam did not mind the storm a whistle.

Care, mad to see a man so happy,
Even drowned himself in ale.
As bees fly home with loads of treasure,
The minutes winged their way with pleasure:
Kings may be blessed, but Tam was glorious,
Over all the ills of life victorious.

But pleasures are like poppies spread:
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed;
Or like the snow fall on the river,
A moment white - then melts forever,
Or like the Aurora Borealis rays,
That move before you can point to their place;
Or like the rainbow’s lovely form,
Vanishing amid the storm.
No man can tether time or tide,
The hour approaches Tom must ride:
That hour, of night’s black arch - the key-stone,
That dreary hour he mounts his beast in
And such a night he takes to the road in
As never a poor sinner had been out in.

The wind blew as if it had blown its last;
The rattling showers rose on the blast;
The speedy gleams the darkness swallowed,
Loud, deep and long the thunder bellowed:
That night, a child might understand,
The Devil had business on his hand.

Well mounted on his grey mare, Meg.
A better never lifted leg,
Tom, raced on through mud and mire,
Despising wind and rain and fire;
Whilst holding fast his good blue bonnet,
While crooning over some old Scots sonnet,
Whilst glowering round with prudent care,
Lest ghosts catch him unaware:
Alloway’s Church was drawing near,
Where ghosts and owls nightly cry.

By this time he was across the ford,
Where in the snow the pedlar got smothered;
And past the birch trees and the huge stone,
Where drunken Charlie broke his neck bone;
And through the thorns, and past the monument,
Where hunters found the murdered child;
And near the thorn, above the well,
Where Mungo’s mother hanged herself.
Before him the river Doon pours all his floods;
The doubling storm roars throught the woods;
The lightnings flashes from pole to pole;
Nearer and more near the thunder rolls;
When, glimmering through the groaning trees,
Alloway’s Church seemed in a blaze,
Through every gap , light beams were glancing,
And loud resounded mirth and dancing.

Inspiring, bold John Barleycorn! (whisky)
What dangers you can make us scorn!
With ale, we fear no evil;
With whisky, we’ll face the Devil!
The ales so swam in Tam’s head,
Fair play, he didn’t care a farthing for devils.
But Maggie stood, right sore astonished,
Till, by the heel and hand admonished,
She ventured forward on the light;
And, vow! Tom saw an incredible sight!

Warlocks and witches in a dance:
No cotillion, brand new from France,
But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels,
Put life and mettle in their heels.
In a window alcove in the east,
There sat Old Nick, in shape of beast;
A shaggy dog, black, grim, and large,
To give them music was his charge:
He screwed the pipes and made them squeal,
Till roof and rafters all did ring.
Coffins stood round, like open presses,
That showed the dead in their last dresses;
And, by some devilish magic sleight,
Each in its cold hand held a light:
By which heroic Tom was able
To note upon the holy table,
A murderer’s bones, in gibbet-irons;
Two span-long, small, unchristened babies;
A thief just cut from his hanging rope -
With his last gasp his mouth did gape;
Five tomahawks with blood red-rusted;
Five scimitars with murder crusted;
A garter with which a baby had strangled;
A knife a father’s throat had mangled -
Whom his own son of life bereft -
The grey-hairs yet stack to the shaft;
With more o' horrible and awful,
Which even to name would be unlawful.
Three Lawyers’ tongues, turned inside out,
Sown with lies like a beggar’s cloth -
Three Priests’ hearts, rotten, black as muck
Lay stinking, vile, in every nook.

As Thomas glowered, amazed, and curious,
The mirth and fun grew fast and furious;
The piper loud and louder blew,
The dancers quick and quicker flew,
They reeled, they set, they crossed, they linked,
Till every witch sweated and smelled,
And cast her ragged clothes to the floor,
And danced deftly at it in her underskirts!

Now Tam, O Tam! had these been young girls,
All plump and strapping in their teens!
Their underskirts, instead of greasy flannel,
Been snow-white seventeen hundred linen! -
The trousers of mine, my only pair,
That once were plush, of good blue hair,
I would have given them off my buttocks
For one blink of those pretty girls!

But withered hags, old and droll,
Ugly enough to suckle a foal,
Leaping and flinging on a stick,
Its a wonder it didn’t turn your stomach!

But Tam knew what was what well enough:
There was one winsome, jolly wench,
That night enlisted in the core,
Long after known on Carrick shore
(For many a beast to dead she shot,
And perished many a bonnie boat,
And shook both much corn and barley,
And kept the country-side in fear.)
Her short underskirt, o’ Paisley cloth,
That while a young lass she had worn,
In longitude though very limited,
It was her best, and she was proud. . .
Ah! little knew your reverend grandmother,
That underskirt she bought for her little grandaughter,
With two Scots pounds (it was all her riches),
Would ever graced a dance of witches!

But here my tale must stoop and bow,
Such words are far beyond her power;
To sing how Nannie leaped and kicked
(A supple youth she was, and strong);
And how Tom stood like one bewitched,
And thought his very eyes enriched;
Even Satan glowered, and fidgeted full of lust,
And jerked and blew with might and main;
Till first one caper, then another,
Tom lost his reason all together,
And roars out: ‘ Well done, short skirt! ’
And in an instant all was dark;
And scarcely had he Maggie rallied,
When out the hellish legion sallied.

As bees buzz out with angry wrath,
When plundering herds assail their hive;
As a wild hare’s mortal foes,
When, pop! she starts running before their nose;
As eager runs the market-crowd,
When ‘ Catch the thief! ’ resounds aloud:
So Maggie runs, the witches follow,
With many an unearthly scream and holler.

Ah, Tom! Ah, Tom! You will get what's coming!
In hell they will roast you like a herring!
In vain your Kate awaits your coming !
Kate soon will be a woeful woman!
Now, do your speedy utmost, Meg,
And beat them to the key-stone of the bridge;
There, you may toss your tail at them,
A running stream they dare not cross!
But before the key-stone she could make,
She had to shake a tail at the fiend;
For Nannie, far before the rest,
Hard upon noble Maggie pressed,
And flew at Tam with furious aim;
But little knew she Maggie’s mettle!
One spring brought off her master whole,
But left behind her own grey tail:
The witch caught her by the rump,
And left poor Maggie scarce a stump.

Now, who this tale of truth shall read,
Each man, and mother’s son, take heed:
Whenever to drink you are inclined,
Or short skirts run in your mind,
Think! you may buy joys over dear:
Remember Tam o’ Shanter’s mare.

John Mackey (b. 1973) has written for orchestras (Brooklyn Philharmonic, New York Youth Symphony), theater (Dallas Theater Center), and extensively for dance (Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Parsons Dance Company, New York City Ballet), but the majority of his work for the past decade has been for wind ensembles (the fancy name for concert bands), and his band catalog now receives annual performances numbering in the thousands.

Recent commissions include works for the BBC Singers, the Dallas Wind Symphony, military, high school, middle school, and university bands across America and Japan, and concertos for Joseph Alessi (principal trombone, New York Philharmonic), Christopher Martin (principal trumpet, New York Philharmonic), and Julian Bliss (international clarinet soloist). In 2014, he became the youngest composer ever inducted into the American Bandmasters Association. In 2018, he received the Wladimir & Rhoda Lakond Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He resides in New York City, with his spouse, A. E. Jaques, a philosopher who works on the ethics of artificial intelligence for MIT, and also titles all of his pieces; and their cats, Noodle and Bloop.

This Cruel Moon was originally the second movement of John Mackey's symphony entitled Wine-Dark Sea, telling some of the stories of Homer's Odyssey. This movement is the song of the beautiful and immortal nymph Kalypso, who finds Odysseus near death, washed up on the shore of the island where she lives all alone. She nurses him back to health, and sings as she moves back and forth with a golden shuttle at her loom. Odysseus shares her bed; seven years pass. The tapestry she began when she nursed him becomes a record of their love.

But one day Odysseus remembers his home. He tells Kalypso he wants to leave her, to return to his wife and son. He scoffs at all she has given him. Kalypso is heartbroken.

And yet, that night, Kalypso again paces at her loom. She unravels her tapestry and weaves it into a sail for Odysseus. In the morning, she shows Odysseus a raft, equipped with the sail she has made and stocked with bread and wine, and calls up a gentle and steady wind to carry him home. Shattered, she watches him go; he does not look back. 

Jack End was a rare man who had the patience and curiosity to follow his talents to the directions in which they led him. He was a total clarinet player, a champion sailor in the snipe class, a casual marksman, and a gifted music arranger. I met him when he was still in high school. Highly recommended by Eastman's clarinet teacher, Rufus Arey, he helped me fill out the section of the Eastman School Symphony Band of which he would become concert master when a regular student. Jack was at ease in all music but his special commitment was to jazz at which he became a walking and blowing encyclopedia. This had begun when he was very young and when he also began to collect the 10"/discs, 78 rpm, which became both his passion and his textbooks for the course in jazz studies which he tried to inaugurate at the Eastman School years in advance of any school anywhere; he also organized and led its first jazz band. When these two inroads probed no deeper than the outer rim of a very conservative institution, his patience yielded to administrative resistance against jazz as a curricular development and he abandoned after what had been a very good fight. Some years later another Rochester jazz musician become Eastman student would pick-up on Jack's beginnings when Chuck Mangione sealed the positive presence of the subject in the Eastman curriculum.

It was the third night in a row, leaving a gig to take his saxophone to his studio at the Eastman School of Music, that Jack End observed the same dead cat at a curb nearby. Snow was falling, and Jack was really moved by the sad scene of the half-covered long-gone creature. He did what he could and wrote this music. 

Dr. Kevin Day (b. 1996) is an award-winning, multi-disciplinary composer, jazz pianist and conductor based in Las Vegas, Nevada. Internationally acclaimed as one of the world’s leading musical voices, Dr. Day’s work is known as a vibrant exploration of diverse musical traditions from contemporary classical, jazz, R&B, Soul and more. A unique voice in the world of classical music, Dr. Day takes inspiration from a broad range of sources, including romanticism, late 20th century music, jazz fusion and gospel. Across all areas, his work explores the complex interplay of rhythm, texture and melody across genres. 

Dr. Day burst onto the musical scene in 2018 with his Concerto for Euphonium, which has since gone on to become a Classic FM sensation and has been recently performed by the United States Marine Band. Since then, some of the world’s top instrumental soloists, wind bands, chamber ensembles and symphony orchestras have commissioned and performed his works, including the Cincinnati Opera, Houston Symphony Orchestra, Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, Dallas Winds, the National Intercollegiate Band, Nu Deco Ensemble, Boston Brass, Capitol Quartet, Puerto Rican Trombone Ensemble, Syrinx Quintet, Sheffield Chamber Players and many others throughout the United States, Canada, Austria, Taiwan, South Africa, Australia and Japan. Dr. Day is the recipient of numerous awards including the ITEA Harvey Phillips Award for Excellence in Composition, a Copland House Residency Award, the MacDowell Fellowship for Music Composition, the BMI Composer Award, the TCU Alumni Outstanding Young Professional Award, a three-time ASCAP Morton Gould Finalist, a finalist for the ABA Sousa-Oswald Award, a finalist twice for the NBA Revelli Award, and many more. He was also selected as the 3rd Prize Winner of the 2020 New Classics International Competition for Young Composers at the Moscow Conservatory. In 2025, Dr. Day was inducted into the TCU Band of Fame. 

Dr. Day’s original opera, Lalovavi: An Afrofuturist Opera, will premiere at the Cincinnati Opera in 2026 as the lead work in its ground-breaking new Black Opera Project. The work is the first of three commissioned by the Cincinnati Opera as part of its initiative to engage Black creators in developing new works celebrating Black stories. As part of the project, Dr. Day is collaborating with renowned director Kimille Howard and librettist Tifara Brown, who’s recognized as one of the country’s leading performance poets. Other recent works include his acclaimed Concerto for Wind Ensemble and Birds in the Cathedral, as well as Ignition, commissioned by the Boston Symphony Low Brass and Unquiet Waters, commissioned by Jordan VanHemert.

In addition to his work as a composer, Dr. Day also enjoys an active career as a jazz pianist. Passionate about collaborations that reimagine and advance the future of jazz as an art form, he brings his extensive musical background to the stage and studio as improviser and collaborator. He’s currently working on a debut solo album. His music has been featured on numerous high profile releases, including albums by Thomas Mesa and Michelle Cann, The Alias Chamber Ensemble, Jeremy Wilson, Jarrett McCourt, and Nicki Roman.

He holds degrees from Texas Christian University (TCU), the University of Georgia, and the University of Miami. He has studied composition with Dorothy Hindman, Charles Norman Mason, Peter Van Zandt Lane, Emily Koh, Gabriela Lena Frank, and Neil Anderson-Himmelspach. Dr. Day is an alumnus of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, an honorary member of the National Chapter of Tau Beta Sigma,  and an honorary member of the National Chapter of Kappa Kappa Psi. 

Shimmering Sunshine is a composition that depicts the sun whenever it is positioned at high noon, at its brightest point during the day. Throughout the piece, there are different "shimmers" of bright light that bounce around from instrument to instrument, depicting moments of sunshine both beautiful and, at the same time, powerful. 

This work was written as part of a triptych involving three composers—each one writing a piece about the progression of a single day. The tryptich is entitled Of Day and Night. Shimmering Sunshine explores the exuberant joyfulness of daylight. Quinn Mason's Across a Golden Sky depicts the magical wonders of the "golden hour" during sunset. Midnight Skyline by Josh Tentadue thus takes on the thrilling, chaotic experiences one could endure throughout the nighttime. 

James Stephenson (b. 1969, Illinois) is an American composer.

Mr. Stephenson came late to his full-time composing career, having performed 17 seasons as a trumpeter in the Naples Philharmonic in Florida, a position he won immediately upon graduating from the New England Conservatory of Music. As such, he is largely self-taught as a composer. Colleagues and friends encouraged his earliest efforts and enthusiasm followed from all directions.

His works have been performed by leading American orchestras and hailed by critics as having “straightforward, unabashedly beautiful sounds” and "Stephenson deserves to be heard again and again!" (Boston Herald). His music incorporates a fresh and energizing soundscape that delights the audience while maintaining integrity and worthwhile challenges for the performing musicians. This rare combination has rewarded Stephenson with a host of ongoing commissions and projects.

Recent collaborations include a concerto for Branford Marsalis with Rodney Mack; an exuberant fanfare for the Houston Symphony; and a concerto for the Philadelphia Orchestra’s principal trombonist, Nitzan Haroz. In 2010 and 2011, Stephenson premieres included a trumpet concerto in Sydney, Australia, (with repeats in Brazil, Sweden and the UK), as well as concertos for flute and clarinet in Florida and Ohio (Cleveland), respectively.

Stephenson is also active in the concert band world, with premieres occurring at major venues such as the 2010 Midwest Clinic, and the 2011 ABA (American Bandmasters Association) convention with the US “President’s Own” Marine Band.

His landmark educational work, Compose Yourself!, has now been performed over 300 times since its creation in 2002. Also active as a highly sought-after arranger, Stephenson's arrangements have been performed/recorded/broadcast by virtually every major orchestra in the country, including the Boston Pops, Cincinnati Pops, New York Pops and more.

Stephenson is currently enjoying a position of Composer-in-Residence with the Lake Forest Symphony (Illinois), Alan Heatherington, Music Director. 

Jim Stephenson writes:

I'm very honored to have been asked by the Big River Brass Band, and director Nicolas Propes, to create this piece in the memory of Jim Holifield. I also wish to thank the family for their input with ideas that musically reflected their father/husband.

The opening starts with an arpeggiated figure (when taken as a whole). This comes from an excerpt I listened to of Alison Krauss, of whose music Jim apparently was quite fond. One of her songs started with a beautiful arpeggiated guitar, so I decided to borrow that concept.

Secondly, it was important to feature the trombones, and especially the bass trombone, when possible, to highlight Jim's own instrument and those who might have been closest to him on stages when he performed. The piece has two main themes: first, as already mentioned, the opening, played mostly in unison by the trombones. A second theme begins after rehearsal E in horn and tuba. These are later superimposed on top of one another in grand fashion at letter G. One might also notice that the piece's title - "RiverField" is also a similarly a combination of the two subjects at play here: the Big "River" Brass Band, Jim's last name, HoliFIELD. This was an attempt to marry the two things that brought this whole project together: a memoriam by the Big River Brass Band in honor of Jim Holifield. Hence, "RiverField."

One will also notice little colorful triplet-gestures appearing intermittently in the cornets, flugelhorn, and horns. These are meant to signify the rippling of waves on a river, as the winds of time pass over them.

If nothing else, I wanted to try to write a beautiful piece of music as a proper tribute to one who obviously touched so many. I'm sad that I didn't get to meet Jim myself, but I hope this piece of music allows for a warm and loving remembrance for those who did know him.

Amanda Christina Elizabeth Aldridge, also called Amanda Ira Aldridge, was born in London in 1866. She was the daughter of African American Shakespearian actor, Ira Aldridge, and Swedish opera singer, Amanda Pauline von Brandt; and sister to Luranah Aldridge, also an opera singer. In her youth, Aldridge was an accomplished pianist and singer (a student of Jenny Lind) and studied composition at the Royal College. In later years, she taught private voice and elocution lessons to British and American singers and actors, including Black performers Paul Robeson, Roland Hayes, and Marian Anderson.

Her compositional career spanned from approximately 1906 to 1934 and included instrumental music, seven piano suites, and at least twenty-six art and parlor songs. Embracing her African American heritage, several of Aldridge’s works incorporate African musical material or are settings of African American texts by poets such as Paul Laurence Dunbar. While much of her music was published under the male pseudonym, Montague Ring, her true identity was an open secret amongst her supporters, family, and music circles. Her most popular works include Three Arabian Dances (1919), Three African Dances (1913), and Carnival Suite of Five Dances (1924) with many works written or arranged for military and dance bands of the time.

Aldridge never married nor bore children but kept in close social contact with her students and cared for two birds, Mr. and Mrs. Browne, through her life. She died after a short illness in 1956. 

On Parade is an English “quick step” march featuring a typical first and second strain, trio, and an unusual secondary trio (a trio-within-a-trio!) that modulates the piece to a third tonal area. 

Vittorio Giannini (19 October 1903 – 28 November 1966) was an American composer.

Giannini attended the Milan Conservatory from 1913 to 1917. He studied violin with Hans Letz and composition with Rubin Goldmark at The Juilliard School in New York. Giannini taught at Juilliard from 1939 to 1941, New York’s Manhattan School of Music from 1941 to 1956, and the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia from 1956 to 1965. Giannini was also the first director of the North Carolina School for the Arts in Winston-Salem, NC, beginning in 1965.

As a composer, Giannini won three consecutive Prix de Rome. His technique was in the late romantic style coupled with an Italianate vocal style. In the late 1940s, he moved toward a lighter neo-classical style and his later years were characterized by more intense romanticism marked by greater dissonance and tonal freedom. His students include David Amram, John Corigliano, Nicolas Flagello, Adolphus Hailstork, and Alfred Reed. 

This is the fourth movement from Giannini's Symphony No. 3. The following program note, provided by the composer himself, shows humor, genuineness, and a lack of pretentiousness!

Symphony No. 3 was composed on a commission by the Duke University Band and its conductor, Paul Bryan, during the summer of 1958, in Rome, Italy, where I was spending my vacation. 

I can give no other reason for choosing to write a symphony to fulfill this commission than that I “felt like it,” and the thought of doing it interested me a great deal.

I will not go into the technical details of the work. Basically, the listener is not concerned with them beyond what they can hear for themselves. I follow no ‘isms’ when I compose; I try to project and communicate a feeling, a thought that is in me at the time, using whatever technique is suggested by my mood to achieve this communication.

The form of the movements is this: first movement – sonata allegro; second movement – A B A; third movement – A B A B; fourth movement – sonata allegro. There are no [programmatic elements] – only what I heard and felt at the time. I hope it makes music.