Carolyn Bremer forged a path as a composer after extensive training as a double bass player. She studied at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, the California Institute of Arts in Santa Clarita, and the University of California, Santa Barbara, and later in her career served as associate director of the Bob Cole Conservatory of Music at California State University, Long Beach. She composed Early Light for the Oklahoma City Philharmonic, which premièred the work in 1995. Its musical material is derived primarily from “The Star-Spangled Banner.” In this bright and uplifting piece, Bremer—a passionate baseball fan since childhood— frames her excitement at hearing the national anthem before ball games. The percussive slap heard near the end echoes the crack of the bat on a long home run.

Carolyn Bremer (28 October 1957, Santa Monica, Calif. - 2 September 2018, Long Beach, Calif.) was an American composer and educator.

Bremer studied at the Eastman School of Music and CalArts and received a Ph.D. in composition from the University of California Santa Barbara. She was chair of composition at the University of Oklahoma from 1991 to 2000 where she held the Sandra and Brian O'Brien Presidential Professorship.

Bremer received grants from Meet The Composer, the American Music Center, the Kirkpatrick Foundation, and the FIPSE program at the U.S. Department of Education, and a Dissertation Fellowship from the Regents of the University of California. At the time of her death, Bremer was chair of the Bob Cole Conservatory of Music at the California State University, Long Beach.

She had been dubbed a composer "driven by hobgoblins of post-modernist cant." Bremer came to composition on the heels of intensive training as an orchestral bassist. Her catalog contains works based on feminist symbolism (Athene), baseball (Early Light), and postmodern theory (Adventures in Hyperreality).

Bremer had performances of her works at Carnegie Hall; in Germany, Norway, and Sweden; and for the gala 150th anniversary concert at West Point. Her consortium commissions include Symphony for Wind Band, premiered by Ray Cramer at Indiana University, and Returns of the Day, premiered by Thomas Dvorak at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Bremer was guest composer for the Technology Initiative Conference at Collin County College in Dallas, Texas; the Women Band Directors International Conference in San Diego; and composer-in-residence at Mansfield University.

Shenandoah is one of the most well-known and beloved American folk songs. Originally a river song detailing the lives and journeys of fur traders canoeing down the Missouri River, the symbolism of this culturally-significant melody has been expanded to include its geographic namesake – an area of the eastern United States that encompasses West Virginia and a good portion of the western part of Virginia – and various parks, rivers, counties, and academic institutions found within.

This arrangement recalls the beauty of Shenandoah Valley, not bathed in golden sunlight, but blanketed by low-hanging clouds and experiencing intermittent periods of heavy rainfall (created with a combination of percussion textures, generated both on instruments and from the body). There are a few musical moments where the sun attempts to pierce through the clouds, but ultimately the rains win out. This arrangement of Shenandoah is at times mysterious, somewhat ominous, constantly introspective, and deeply soulful.

Described as "elegant, beautiful, sophisticated, intense, and crystal clear in emotional intent," the music of Omar Thomas continues to move listeners everywhere it is performed. Born to Guyanese parents in Brooklyn, New York in 1984, Omar moved to Boston in 2006 to pursue a Master of Music in Jazz Composition at the New England Conservatory of Music after studying Music Education at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. He is the protégé of lauded composers and educators Ken Schaphorst and Frank Carlberg and has studied under multiple Grammy-winning composer and bandleader Maria Schneider.

Hailed by Herbie Hancock as showing "great promise as a new voice in the further development of jazz in the future," educator, arranger, and award-winning composer Omar Thomas has created music extensively in the contemporary jazz ensemble idiom. It was while completing his Master of Music Degree that he was appointed the position of Assistant Professor of Harmony at Berklee College of Music at the surprisingly young age of 23. Following his Berklee tenure, he served on the faculty of the Music Theory department at The Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Now a Yamaha Master Educator, he is currently an Assistant Professor of Composition and Jazz Studies at The University of Texas at Austin. He was awarded the ASCAP Young Jazz Composers Award in 2008, and invited by the ASCAP Association to perform his music in their highly exclusive JaZzCap Showcase, held in New York City. In 2012, Omar was named the Boston Music Award's "Jazz Artist of the Year." In 2019, he was awarded the National Bandmasters Association/Revelli Award for his wind composition “Come Sunday,” becoming the first Black composer awarded the honor in the contest’s 42-year history. 

​Now a Yamaha Master Educator, Omar's music has been performed in concert halls the world over. He has been commissioned to create works in both jazz and classical styles. His work has been performed by such diverse groups as the Eastman New Jazz Ensemble, the San Francisco and Boston Gay Mens' Choruses, The United States Marine Band, the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, the Houston Symphony Orchestra, and the Showa Wind Symphony, in addition to a number of the country's top collegiate music ensembles. Omar has had a number of celebrated singers perform over his arrangements, including Stephanie Mills, Yolanda Adams, Nona Hendryx, BeBe Winans, Kenny Lattimore, Marsha Ambrosius, Sheila E., Raul Midon, Leela James, Dionne Warwick, and Chaka Khan. His work is featured on Dianne Reeves's Grammy Award-winning album, "Beautiful Life."

Omar's first album, "I AM," debuted at #1 on iTunes Jazz Charts and peaked at #13 on the Billboard Traditional Jazz Albums Chart. His second release, " We Will Know: An LGBT Civil Rights Piece in Four Movements," has been hailed by Grammy Award-winning drummer, composer, and producer Terri Lyne Carrington as being a "thought-provoking, multi-layered masterpiece" which has "put him in the esteemed category of great artists." "We Will Know" was awarded two OUTMusic Awards, including "Album of the Year." For this work, Omar was named the 2014 Lavender Rhino Award recipient by The History Project, acknowledging his work as an up-and-coming activist in the Boston LGBTQ community. Says Terri Lyne: "Omar Thomas will prove to be one of the more important composers/arrangers of his time."

Divertimento was commissioned by the Des Moines Symphony Orchestra and composed in the summer of 1993.  The piece, in four movements, is a tribute to three American composers, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, and George Gershwin who were all intrigued by jazz and incorporated elements of the idiom into their music.  The use of the musical notes c (Copland), b (Bernstein), and g (Gershwin) form the nucleus for much of the thematic as well as harmonic material.  The composition uses jazz elements as the basis for a classical composition. 

Extensive use is made of the blues scale sound both in thematic and harmonic structures. Written meters are often altered by grouping notes in a manner that displaces normal accents. Typical is the eighth note grouping of 3 + 3 + 2 in a 4/4 measure. The interval of the seventh derived from the C-B note relationship is a prominent unifying element in each movement. The third movement, Remembrance, strays from extensive use of the blues scale, idiomatic jazz rhythms, and extensive use of the c, b, and g note combinations.  Here, the intention is to contrast the other three movements (movement three is in the key of G, all others are in C) but continue the use of idiomatic jazz elements in the form of a jazz ballad. 

The Divertimento was then transcribed for band by the composer that same year and performed by the Iowa State University Wind Ensemble at the College Band Directors National Association North Central Convention in Omaha.  

Roger Cichy (b. 1956, Columbus, Ohio) has a diverse background as both a composer/arranger and a music educator. Roger holds a Bachelor of Music and a Master of Arts in Music Education degrees from The Ohio State University. Although both are in the area of music education, he has studied composition and arranging as a second area of concentration during both degree programs.

As a music educator, Roger was a very successful band director in Mars, Pennsylvania covering grades 5 through 12 in instrumental music. After earning his Master’s degree, Roger served as Associate Director of Bands at the University of Rhode Island, and at Iowa State University where he directed the Marching Band, Concert Band, and Basketball Pep Band and taught various music courses on the undergraduate level. In 1995, he resigned from his position at Iowa State University to devote full-time to composing and arranging.

As a freelance composer and arranger, Roger writes for high school and college bands, professional orchestras, and the commercial music industry. He has over 275 compositions and arrangements accredited to his name. Included in those works are several published by Kendor Music, Psyclone Music, Heritage Music, Great Works Publishing, Band Music Press, Daehn Publications, Wingert-Jones Music, MSB Publishing, C. Alan Publications, and Permus Publications. His composition mentors include Edward Montgomery, Marshall Barnes, and Joseph Levey.

Roger's works include Galilean Moons, commissioned by the University of Georgia Wind Symphony and premiered at the College Band Directors National Association (CBDNA) national convention in February 1997; Colours, a six-movement work commissioned by the Kansas State University Symphony Band, and Make a Joyous Sound, commissioned by the Des Moines Symphony; BBC Forever!, commissioned by the Brass Band of Columbus; Wisconsin Soundscapes, commissioned by the University of Wisconsin-Superior Symphonic Band to honor the 150th anniversary of Wisconsin statehood; Bugs, commissioned by the University of St. Thomas and premiered at the North Central Regional Conference of the College Band Directors National Association; and First Flights, commissioned by the University of Georgia to commemorate the upcoming 100th anniversary of flight. 

On June 29, 1962, Life Magazine featured Aaron Copland's composition Down a Country Lane. The piece was commissioned by Life in hopes of making quality music available to the common pianist and student. The work was featured along with an article titled "Our Bumper Crop of Beginning Piano Players". The article explains, "Down a Country Lane fills a musical gap: It is among the few modern pieces specially written for young piano students by a major composer." Copland is quoted in the article as saying "Even third-year students will have to practice before trying it in public." Copland then explains the title: "The music is descriptive only in an imaginative, not a literal sense. I didn't think of the title until the piece was finished -- Down a Country Lane just happened to fit its flowing quality."

Copland is very descriptive in his directions on how the piece should be played. The piece begins with instructions to play "gently flowing in a pastoral mood"; a brief midsection is slightly dissonant and to be played "a trifle faster"; and the ending returns to the previous lyrical mood. Down a Country Lane was orchestrated for inclusion in a youth orchestra series and premiered on November 20, 1965, by the London Junior Orchestra. The band arrangement was completed by Merlin Patterson in 1988. Patterson specialized in Copland transcriptions. Copland himself spoke of Patterson's excellent work upon the completion of Down a Country Lane, saying that he produced "a careful, sensitive, and most satisfying extension of the mood and content of the original."

Aaron Copland (14 November 1900, Brooklyn, N.Y. - 2 December 1990, Sleepy Hollow, N.Y.) was an American composer, often referred to as "the Dean of American composers."

He studied closely with the legendary pedagogue Nadia Boulanger, and his music achieved a balance between modern music and American folk styles, and the open, slowly changing harmonies of many of his works are said to evoke the vast American landscape. Copland incorporated percussive orchestration, changing meter, polyrhythms, polychords, and tone rows.

In the 1970s, Copland virtually stopped composing, although he continued to conduct. In addition to composing and conducting, Copland wrote several books, including What to Listen for in Music (1939), Music and Imagination (1952), and Copland on Music (1960). Copland was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in composition for Appalachian Spring. His scores for Of Mice and Men (1939), Our Town (1940), and The North Star (1943) all received Academy Award nominations, while The Heiress won Best Music in 1949.

Solo Pomposo is one of the hundreds of pieces Henry Fillmore wrote for band. This piece is light-hearted and energetic feature showcasing the tuba.

Because he was so prolific of a composer in his lifetime, he often published under pseudonyms so he wouldn't have to compete with himself. The pseudonyms he used were Gus Beans, Harold Bennett, Ray Hall, Harry Hartley, Al Hayes, and Henrietta Moore.

Henry Fillmore (3 December 1881, Cincinnati, Ohio - 7 December 1956, Miami, Fla.) was an American composer and publisher.

James Henry Fillmore Jr. was the eldest of five children. In his youth, he mastered piano, guitar, violin, and flute -- as well as the trombone, which at first he played in secret, as his conservative religious father believed it an uncouth and sinful instrument. Fillmore was also a singer for his church choir as a boy. He began composing at 18, with his first published march, Higham, named after a line of brass instruments. Fillmore entered the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music in 1901. After this, he traveled around the United States as a circus bandmaster with his wife, an exotic dancer named Mabel May Jones.

Fillmore gained fame as the Father of the Trombone Smear, writing a series of fifteen novelty tunes featuring trombone smears called "The Trombone Family", including Miss Trombone, Sally Trombone, Lassus Trombone, and Shoutin' Liza Trombone. A number of these have a strong ragtime influence.

Fillmore wrote over 250 tunes and arranged hundreds more. Fillmore also published a great number of tunes under various pseudonyms such as Harold Bennett, Ray Hall, Harry Hartley, Al Hayes, and the funniest, Henrietta Hall. The name that caused a conflict was Will Huff, because there was a Will Huff, who did compose marches and lived and composed in his state and area. While best known for march music and screamers, Fillmore also wrote waltzes, foxtrots, hymns, novelty numbers, overtures, and waltzes.

Henry Fillmore moved from Cincinnati, Ohio, to Miami in 1938 after a doctor had informed him that he had six months to live. The doctor had suggested that if he moved to a warmer climate, his chances of living longer would be greater. The Fillmores took the doctor's advice and moved to Miami, in hopes of improving Henry's health. It apparently worked since they lived happily there until their deaths in the 1950s.

Henry had been a famous conductor and composer in Cincinnati, and when he moved to Florida he soon became established as the most popular band conductor and composer that state had ever known. His great personality and sense of humor, combined with a casual attitude and a love of young people soon established him as one of the most popular personalities in Miami.

He had established an especially close relationship with the students in the University of Miami band and their band director, Fred McCall. Henry became a regular guest conductor on the stage and in the Orange Bowl, and his popular marches named for Miami and the Orange Bowl helped make him even more popular.

Henry had been good for the University of Miami, and the University of Miami loved Henry Fillmore. In 1954 he wrote his last composition, a terrific march "Dedicated to the Presidents of the University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida." It was appropriately titled The President's March.

In 1956 the university rewarded Henry with one of the greatest honors of his career. On February 6, 1956, Henry Fillmore was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music. The presentation was one of the happiest days of his life, and nine months later, on December 7, 1956, Henry passed away in his sleep as "the heart that had kept time with some of the happiest music on the concert stage finally lost its beat."

An American in Paris is meant to reflect the impressions made by that city on a wide-eyed American visitor. There is local flavor, even down to the use in the first few minutes of klaxon horns, meant to represent Paris taxicabs. Here is the original program note provided by Gerswhin:

My purpose here is to portray the impressions of an American visitor in Paris as he strolls about the city, listens to various street noises, and absorbs the French atmosphere.

The opening gay section is followed by a rich “blues” with a strong rhythmic undercurrent. Our American friend, perhaps after strolling into a café and having a couple of drinks, has succumbed to a spasm of homesickness. The harmony here is both more intense and simple than in the preceding pages.

This “blues” rises to a climax followed by a coda in which the spirit of the music returns to the vivacity and bubbling exuberance of the opening part with its impressions of Paris. Apparently the homesick American, having left the café and reached the open air, has downed his spell of blues and once again is an alert spectator of Parisian life.

At the conclusion, the street noises and French atmosphere are triumphant.

George Gershwin, born in Brooklyn, New York on September 26, 1898, was the second son of Russian immigrants. As a boy, George was anything but studious, and it came as a wonderful surprise to his family that he had secretly been learning to play the piano. In 1914, Gershwin left high school to work as a Tin Pan Alley song plugger and within three years, “When You Want ‘Em, You Can’t Get ‘Em; When You Have ‘Em, You Don’t Want ‘Em,” was published. Though this initial effort created little interest, “Swanee” (lyrics by Irving Caesar) — turned into a smash hit by Al Jolson in 1919 — brought Gershwin his first real fame.

In 1924, when George teamed up with his older brother Ira, “the Gershwins” became the dominant Broadway songwriters, creating infectious rhythm numbers and poignant ballads, fashioning the words to fit the melodies with a “glove-like” fidelity. This extraordinary combination created a succession of musical comedies, including LADY, BE GOOD! (1924), OH, KAY! (1926), FUNNY FACE (1927), STRIKE UP THE BAND (1927 and 1930), GIRL CRAZY (1930), and OF THEE I SING (1931), the first musical comedy to win a Pulitzer Prize. Over the years, Gershwin's songs have also been used in numerous films, including SHALL WE DANCE (1937), A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS (1937), and AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1951). Later years produced the award-winning “new” stage musicals MY ONE AND ONLY (1983) and CRAZY FOR YOU (1992), which ran for four years on Broadway.

Starting with his early days as a song composer, Gershwin had ambitions to compose serious music. Asked by Paul Whiteman to write an original work for a concert of modern music to be presented at Aeolian Hall in New York on February 12, 1924, George, who was hard at work on a musical comedy, SWEET LITTLE DEVIL, barely completed his composition in time. Commencing with the first low trill of the solo clarinet and its spine-tingling run up the scale, RHAPSODY IN BLUE caught the public’s fancy and opened a new era in American music. In 1925, conductor Walter Damrosch commissioned Gershwin to compose a piano concerto for the New York Symphony Society. Many feel that the CONCERTO IN F is Gershwin’s finest orchestral work. Others opt for his AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1928) or his SECOND RHAPSODY for piano and orchestra, which he introduced with himself as pianist with the Boston Symphony under Serge Koussevitzsky in 1932.

In 1926 Gershwin read PORGY, DuBose Heyward’s novel of the South Carolina Gullah culture, and immediately recognized it as a perfect vehicle for a “folk opera” using blues and jazz idioms. PORGY AND BESS (co-written with Heyward and Ira) was Gershwin’s most ambitious undertaking, integrating unforgettable songs with dramatic incident. PORGY AND BESS previewed in Boston on September 30, 1935 and opened its Broadway run on October 10. The opera had major revivals in 1942, 1952, 1976, and 1983 and has toured the world. It was made into a major motion picture by Samuel Goldwyn in 1959, while Trevor Nunn’s landmark Glyndebourne Opera production was taped for television in 1993.

George Gershwin was at the height of his career in 1937. His symphonic works and three PRELUDES for piano were becoming part of the standard repertoire for concerts and recitals, and his show songs had brought him increasing fame and fortune. It was in Hollywood, while working on the score of THE GOLDWYN FOLLIES, that George Gershwin died of a brain tumor; he was not quite 39 years old. Countless people throughout the world, who knew Gershwin only through his work, were stunned by the news as if they had suffered a personal loss. Some years later, the writer John O’Hara summed up their feelings: “George Gershwin died July 11, 1937, but I don’t have to believe it if I don’t want to.”

Gershwin’s works are performed today with greater frequency than they were during his brief lifetime. His songs and concert pieces continue to fill the pages of discographies and orchestra calendars. The Trustees of Columbia University recognized Gershwin’s influence — and made up for his not receiving a Pulitzer for OF THEE I SING in 1932 — when they awarded him a special posthumous Pulitzer Prize in 1998, the centennial of his birth.

The march was originally dedicated to Thomas E. Mitten who was the top executive of the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company, whose trolleys transported throngs of visitors from Philadelphia to the suburban Willow Grove Park where the Sousa Band performed every summer. Mitten's favorite hymn, "Onward Christian Soldiers" became the basis for the march's finale.

For the second edition of the march Sousa changed the title from the original March of the Mitten Men to a more universal Power and Glory. It was reported that sales increased significantly after this change. 

John Philip Sousa was born in Washington, D. C. on November 6, 1854. His father, John Antonio Sousa, was born in Spain of Portuguese parents, and his mother, Marie Elizabeth Trinkaus, was born in Bavaria.

Sousa received his early education in Washington public schools, while simultaneously studying music at a private conservatory. At age 13, he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Band as a "boy" (apprentice) musician, but he also continued his private music studies. His most important teacher was George Felix Benkert, with whom he studied violin, harmony, and composition. After serving seven years with the marines, he was discharged. Thereafter, he performed as a violinist and conductor in various theater orchestras in Washington and Philadelphia.

By 1880, his fame as a conductor, composer, and arranger had been established. He was appointed leader of the U. S. Marine Band and held this position for 12 years, eventually molding the band into the finest military band in the world.

Sousa resigned from the Marine Corps in 1892 to form his own civilian band. In a matter of months this band assumed a position of equality with the finest symphony orchestras of the day. It was a concert organization, not a marching band. The finest available instrumentalists were engaged, and among the celebrated soloists to perform with the band over the years were Herbert L. Clarke (cornet), Arthur Pryor (trombone), Simone Mantia (euphonium), Estelle Liebling (soprano), and Maud Powell (violin). Numerous other artists of international fame performed with the band at one time or another.

People throughout the world flocked to see "The March King" during his many American and worldwide tours. He employed a principle that endeared him to the public: Everything was played to perfection, whether it was a classical masterpiece or a popular song.

Sousa was a man of considerable self-discipline and extraordinary talent. He excelled in everything he undertook, yet he was unassuming, approachable, tolerant, and in possession of an almost saintly disposition. To all who knew him, he was a man of incredibly high moral standards. From his childhood, he was determined, and industrious, and in command of such an unbounded optimism that nothing seemed impossible to him. Foremost in his mind was how best to please his audiences.

Sousa's musical compositions represent a heritage that belongs not only to Americans, but also to vast numbers of music lovers around the world. His influence on American musical tastes was remarkable, and much of his influence spread abroad. The Sousa band traveled the world in 1910-1911, made four additional tours of Europe, and annual tours of America.

Although Sousa is stereotyped as a march composer, he composed music of many forms, including 15 operettas. Among his many original works for band are suites, humoresques, fantasies, descriptive pieces, and dances. In addition to the over 200 songs of his operettas, he composed 70 other vocal works, and many of these vocal works wee transcribed for use with the Sousa Band.

The musical philosophy, which stimulated his composing, ("I would rather be the composer of an inspired march than of a manufactured symphony.") is reflected in all of his works. Basically a humble, deeply religious man, he composed only upon genuine inspiration and repeatedly stated that his melodies came from a "Higher Power."

Sousa was an indefatigable worker, proclaiming that, "When you hear of Sousa retiring, you will hear of Sousa dead." This prediction came true; he died suddenly following a rehearsal of the Ringgold Band in Reading Pennsylvania on March 6, 1932. He is buried with other family members at Congressional Cemetery in Washington. Among hundreds of honors he received during his lifetime and posthumously, was election to the Hall of Fame for Great Americans. Only 102 persons have been so honored.