This page has a bunch of individual songs that I particularly enjoyed performing. Basically, this is the highlight reel.
This table is sortable and searchable - click the headers to sort, or use the search bar below to find anything that matches (group, song name, comments, etc.).
New - RSS Feed!
I've set up a new RSS feed for the pieces in this table. You can use the RSS reader or podcast player of your choice to get all new songs as they're posted.
The feed address is https://wolfacoustics.com/feed/podcast. You should be able to add a new podcast to any player with the address/RSS feed/custom option. If you have any questions about how to set it up, send me an email ([email protected]) and I'll see if I can help you out.
| Song | Composer | Group | Concert | Audio | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mała Suita (Little Suite) - II. Hurra Polka (Hurray Polka) | Witold Lutosławski | Clark College Orchestra | 2020-03-11 Clark College | This was from the last concert that I got to play before everything got cancelled, and it turned out quite nice. Witold Lutosławski was a prominent 20th century Polish composer; he wrote his Little Suite for Symphony Orchestra in 1951. This is the second movement from that piece, which translates to (as best as I can tell) "Hurray Polka." It's definitely intense. There is an interesting musical technique that the composer uses here - starting at about 0:25 (and again at 1:05), there is a motif that is played three times, but one note gets longer each time it's played. Side note, I think this is the only orchestral piece I've seen that has flutter tongue for the brass - it's a rough sound that normally doesn't match, but it seems to work here. Also, that ending is really nerve-wracking - it's difficult to follow, and a single person coming in early can ruin it (and did many times in rehearsal), but it worked on the gig, which is where it counts. | |
| Mała Suita (Little Suite) - IV. Taniec (Dance) | Witold Lutosławski | Clark College Orchestra | 2020-03-11 Clark College | This is the final movement from Lutosławski's Little Suite - "taniec" is Polish for "dance." However, I challenge anyone to dance to this - it switches back and forth seemingly randomly between 2/4 and 3/4, slows down and speeds up suddenly, and ends in a presto 1/2. It's a fascinating piece to listen to, and a lot of fun to play. | |
| Festspel | Hugo Alfvén | Clark College Orchestra | 2020-03-11 Clark College | Another piece from my latest symphony orchestra concert. Hugo Alfvén was a Swedish composer - he wrote Festspel (Festival Overture) in the early 1900s. This is a nice brass-forward piece. Some interesting things to listen for: -There are several instances of layering, where a motif is played by one person, then by two, then by three. This is actually the first thing you hear on this piece with the trumpets, followed by the trombones. -The entire piece is in 3/4, but the subdivisions switch between eighths and triplets, so there are two distinct feels. For instance, there is a clear shift at 0:24. -There is a great double-tongued trumpet lick near the end. | |
| Secret Love | Sammy Fain, arr. Dave Wolpe | Millennium Dance Band | 2020-02-14 Sock Hop at Christ Church | In the spirit of Valentine's Day, here's a song from the sock hop that my dance band put on for Valentine's Day. Secret Love was written by Sammy Fain (with lyrics by Paul Francis Webster) for a 1953 musical film entitled Calamity Jane, which starred Doris Day in the titular role. This version of the song was arranged by Dave Wolpe, and features the trombone section as a group and solos. I may be biased, but I think us bones have the best section sound in the group. | |
| Blue Bossa | Kenny Dorham, arr. Michael Sweeney | Millennium Dance Band | 2020-01-10 Christ Church | The dance band (big band-style jazz group) that I play in holds a monthly dance. This was a bossa nova piece that we played at one of the recent events, which includes a solo from yours truly. | |
| The Free Lance March (On to Victory) | John Philip Sousa, arr. Keith Brion And Loras Schissel | LOMCB | 2019-12-01 Fond Memories and New Beginnings | My concert band really likes marches - we have at least one on every concert. On this concert, we actually had two - the closer and the encore. Sousa wrote an operetta called "The Free Lance," which detailed the exploits of a crafty goatherd called Sigmund Lump who got himself hired as a mercenary leader for two opposing armies, arranged his forces so neither side could win, then declared himself emperor of both nations. Later, Sousa compiled themes from many of the tunes from that operetta together into the Free Lance March (most significantly, the song On to Victory became the trio section), which is why this song is longer and of atypical construction for a Sousa march. | |
| Sextet from "Lucia di Lammermoor" | Gaetano Donizetti, arr. Leonard B. Smith | LOMCB | 2019-12-01 Fond Memories and New Beginnings | This was a fun piece with my concert band. It's an arrangement of "Chi mi frena in tal momento" from the tragic opera Lucia di Lammermoor, by Gaetano Donizetti. Lucia has been tricked by her dastardly brother Enrico into believing that her lover Edgardo has been unfaithful. Enrico convinces her to instead marry his political ally Arturo. She signs the marriage contract, at which point Edgardo bursts in. These four, along with Lucia's companion Alicia and the chaplain Raimondo (me) then sing the sextet which ends with a cry of anguish from Lucia to close out the second act - there are too many plot points to list in this description, but there's a nice write-up here if you're interested. Lucia (titular character) - trumpet Alicia (Lucia's companion) - trumpet Edgardo (Lucia's lover) - euphonium Enrico (Lucia's conniving brother) - euphonium Arturo (the man who Lucia is tricked into marrying) - trombone Raimondo (the chaplain) (me!) - trombone | |
| Happy Xmas (War is Over) | John Lennon, Yoko Ono, ad. Tim Wells | Solid Brass | 2019-12-09 This Joyful Season | This was a piece from my brass band's Christmas concert. It was a fun piece to play, and was quite well-received. Happy Xmas (War is Over) is a Christmas standard and protest song against the Vietnam War. John Lennon and Yoko Ono spearheaded a 1969 peace activism campaign, posting billboards in major cities worldwide stating "WAR IS OVER! If You Want It - Happy Christmas from John and Yoko," which became the basis for the lyrics. | |
| Go the Distance | Alan Menken, arr. Callum Au, ad. Steve Robertson | Solid Brass | 2019-05-20 The Power of Jazz | Originally written by Alan Menken for the Disney film, Hercules, it was popularized with a cover by Michael Bolton. This version was arranged for our brass group by one of our own, and I really love it. It shows off the highs, the lows, the epic horns, and will just all-around blow your socks off. | |
| Skyfall | Adele Adkins and Paul Epworth, arr. Roger Holmes | Millennium Dance Band | 2018-10-12 Tigard Ballroom | Released in 2012, Skyfall is Adele's title song for the popular James Bond movie. This was the penultimate piece in a ballroom dance set for a group that I often sub with. The singer was excellent and put a lot of movement and emotion into her performance. (It's a vocal feature, but I really like the piece, so it's going on the featured list.) | |
| Bombasto | Orion Farrar | Solid Brass | 2018-09-10 Holladay Park | Bombasto is one of the most famous circus marches of all time. We played this at a retirement community (our first concert with a new conductor, who did quite well), and it went down a treat with the residents. We played in their outdoor courtyard, which is why it sounds quite dry. We almost got rained out, but after a couple of sprinkles, it cleared up. Everyone balanced well and played cleanly on this piece. I'm especially proud of how well the trombones, euphoniums, and tuba lined up on the runs - not an easy feat for 7 people. | |
| Fiesta de los Toros | Brian Balmages | LOMCB | 2017-12-03 Magical Music | Written by Brian Balmages, this piece, translated as Festival of the Bulls, is a tour de force of Latin music styles from Spain to Cuba. It opens with a modified salsa (3-3-3-2). The trumpet solo line brings in a merengue feel. This is followed by a paso doble section depicting a bullfight, with the percussion as the matador and the winds as the matador's cape. A slow habanera (contradanza) section is next providing a moment of respite. Finally, the piece concludes with a buildup and climax in Afro-Cuban style. This was definitely an entertaining piece to play, and great fun for the audience to hear as well. It's long and challenging, but it came out really well. | |
| White Christmas | Irving Berlin | Festival Brass | 2014-12-19 Live at the Grotto | This is a classic Christmas piece made famous by Bing Crosby. This featured me on the trombone and one of the trumpets. It's from a Christmas concert held at the chapel at the Grotto, which is a huge and echoey room. | |
| New York, New York | John Kander, arr. Robert Elkjer | RTQ | 2016-07-12 The Springs at Carman Oaks | Debuted by Liza Minnelli in the 1977 film of the same name, this classic was popularized by Frank Sinatra and has since become the unofficial anthem of the city. This was part of a concert at a retirement community, and was a definite hit with the audience. | |
| Night on Bald Mountain | Modest Mussorgsky | OPACO | 2017-08-12 Summer Pops | Made (even more) famous by Disney's Fantasia, this is one of the most recognizable classical orchestral works today. It is a tone poem by Modest Mussorgsky, detailing a witches' sabbath occurring on St. John's Eve (or Kupala Night) on a mountain near Kiev. The piece evokes images of "profane rituals" and conjured evil spirits, and ends as dawn breaks and the hordes vanish. This was another piece from the August pops concert - I had a lot of fun playing this. | |
| Main Theme from Star Wars | John Williams | OPACO | 2017-08-12 Summer Pops | Oh man, this one was so much fun! We had a pops concert with all of the big recognizable orchestra pops pieces (Bald Mountain, Phantom of the Opera, etc.). At the end of the program, there was a mysterious "special encore," so none of the audience knew what to expect. We hit the first note, and several people started cheering (you can hear some of them in the recording). It was an awesome way to end a concert. Star Wars Main Title, from the soundtrack to the 1977 space opera, Star Wars: A New Hope. | |
| The Stars and Stripes Forever | John Philip Sousa | LOMCB | 2017-07-03 Patriotic Concert | It's coming up on the 4th of July, so here's a classic patriotic piece and our closer from our outdoor patriotic concert last year. Composed by John Phillip Sousa in 1897 and adopted as the official march of the USA in 1987 (a pleasing bit of numerical symmetry there), The Stars and Stripes Forever is the quintessential march. When the Sousa band debuted it, they had to play it three times because the crowd loved it so much. | |
| Seventy Six Trombones | Meredith Wilson, arr. Ted Ricketts | LOMCB | 2017-05-07 A World of Music | You know the song - not much more to say. It was written in the mid-50s by Meredith Wilson for the play The Music Man, and we performed it as our closer/encore. | |
| Second Suite for Military Band - March | Gustav Holst | Solid Brass | 2017-05-01 Spring Concert | This is the first (and most recognizable) movement from Gustav Holst's 1911 composition. We got a good audience for this concert, and this piece was well received. | |
| That's a Plenty | Lew Pollack | Solid Brass | 2017-05-01 Spring Concert | We were finally able to get Solid Brass back up and running after a change of conductors, and ended up with a great concert. This was the closer for that concert, and it ended up that we had to play an encore. This is a ragtime/Dixieland jazz tune, and it's considered to be a jazz standard. | |
| Wellington's Victory - The Battle | Ludwig Van Beethoven | OPACO | 2016-06-04 In The Shadow of Beethoven | Grab your headphones - it really does make a difference here. This was an interesting piece to play. The 1812 Overture isn't the only piece that has cannons! Written by Beethoven, this piece details the the battle between the British (lead by the Duke of Wellington) and the French (lead by Joseph Bonaparte) in 1813 in Spain. It starts off with a drum and bugle fanfare from the British (on the left), then Rule Britannia. Then, the French (on the right) respond with their own drum and bugle call, followed by Marlbrough s'en va-t-en guerre (a tune later combined with the lyrics, "For he's a jolly good fellow"). The French bugler gives one final call, which the British bugler tauntingly repeats a third higher, then the battle breaks out with musket and cannon fire overlaying the music. As the battle and the piece wind to a close, you can hear that only the British continue to fire. I was asked to design, build, and play the cannons and muskets for this piece. The score has it for four percussionists (two bass drums and two ratchets). I ended up programming a drum pad and pedals with cannon and musket samples and running it to two pairs of massive speakers, then writing my own color-coded part to get all 4 parts onto one sheet. Oh, and I was also doing the recording, as well. Definitely quite an undertaking, but everyone, musicians and audience alike, had a lot of fun with it. Fun fact: in response to negative criticism of this piece, Beethoven himself memorably commented, "What I sh*t is better than anything you could think up!" | |
| Lassus Trombone | Henry Fillmore, arr. Loras Schissel | LOMCB | 2016-05-22 A Capitol Preview | We played this on our trip out to Washington D.C., and it brought the house down every time. | |
| Rise of the Firebird | Stephen Reineke | LOMCB | 2016-03-06 Musical Imagery | A relatively short but energetic piece by Stephen Reineke. It's a barnstormer of a piece with a slight Christmas-y feel (although that may just be me, but I can't hear sleigh bells without thinking Christmas) - this was the opener for the second half of the concert. If you would like to follow along, the sheet music was posted by the publisher - enjoy: http://www.barnhouse.com/~barnhous/samples/pdf/012-3134-00.pdf | |
| Rikudim | Jan Van der Roost | LOMCB | 2016-03-06 Musical Imagery | Rikudim is a series of four Israeli folk dances. I thought I'd do something a bit different and include the sheet music from which I played I. Andante Moderato (sheet music) II. Allegretto con eleganza (sheet music) III. Andante con dolcezza (sheet music) IV. Con moto e follemento (sheet music) | |
| Four Dance Episodes for Band | Gary Gilroy | LOMCB | 2016-03-06 Musical Imagery | As the name suggests, this piece is split into four distinct dances. It opens with a rollicking 5/4 section, followed by a hoedown, then a melancholic ballad, before closing with a driving climax. | |
| The Pink Panther | Henry Mancini, arr. Marcel Saurer | Solid Brass | 2015-06-06 Hillsboro First Baptist | Made famous by the 1963 film with Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau, this is the theme that everyone knows. | |
| Art in the Park: II. The Shadowed Stream | Robert Sheldon | LOMCB | 2015-05-03 The Magic of Music | Robert Sheldon composed Art in the Park for concert band. The piece consists of four movements, each based on a different piece of art. The Shadowed Stream is a watercolor painting by John Singer Sargent. | |
| A Flourish of Sprites | Daniel Ogren | LOMCB | 2015-05-03 The Magic of Music | This was a fun piece for us to play. It was actually written and conducted by one of our members, Daniel Ogren (usually found in the percussion section), specifically for the Lake Oswego Millennium Concert Band. Full of flourishes and turns, the piece evokes images of dancing sprites or fairies. | |
| Amparito Roca | Jaime Texidor | LOMCB | 2015-03-01 A Winter Medley | Perhaps the most famous pasodoble (a Spanish dance), Amparito Roca was composed by Jaime Texidor in the late 1920s. Upbeat and catchy, this wind band arrangement will make you want to jump up and dance. | |
| The Erlking - Act 2, Scene 1 | Laura Specht | OPACO | 2015 | Here's an odd one for me. I'm not actually playing on this, but I did the recording and mastering. 18 channels of audio, a full orchestra and several singers, and several months of working before and after the session meant that this was a big part of my life, especially since a friend was the one who wrote the opera. I am stoked about how well this turned out. The characters appearing in this piece are (in order of appearance): Haas - baritone - main character/hero Erlking - countertenor (falsetto) - the evil Elf King/Devil Kikimora - soprano - a good forest spirit In this scene, the Erlking has convinced Haas that his village is under attack, and the only way to save it is to make a deal with him. Kikimora tries to keep Haas safely in her forest cave, but Haas feels he has no choice but to make the deal, and calls upon the Erlking. | |
| The Irish Washerwoman | Leroy Anderson | LOMCB | 2015-03-01 A Winter Medley | An oldie but goodie. Leroy Anderson arranged this piece, part of his Irish Suite, for the Boston Pops in the 40s, and it has since become one of his most well-known compositions for concert band. I do give credit to the woodwinds on this - their part is... well, let's just say that it's a bit tricky. | |
| The Homefront: Musical Memories from WWII | James Christiansen | LOMCB | 2015-03-01 A Winter Medley | There's a primal reaction when you hear an air raid siren. Especially when that siren is right behind your head. Even after practicing and performing this piece, I still get that gut-punch reaction every time. It is also my favorite piece from our recent band concert. The Homefront consists of a medley of songs including: It's Been a Long, Long Time Thanks for the Memory Bell Bottom Trousers (There'll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs of Dover I'll Be Seeing You Don't Sit Under The Apple Tree (With Anyone Else But Me) Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition! | |
| Sleigh Ride | Leroy Anderson | Festival Brass | 2014-12-19 Live at the Grotto | This one has a funny story to go along with it. When we perform this piece, we usually have a couple of audience members come up to play the sleigh bells and the whip crack. On this one, the people we got were the event organizers, I think (we were one part of a multi-night, multi-act Christmas thing). Anyway, we made a big deal about how and when you play those instruments as part of our schtick. After that, we started the song. The guy plays the whip crack perfectly (hence the applause you hear after the first one). Of course, if you've heard the piece before, you know that there's a really big one right at the end (after the horse whinny). So, the guy playing the whip turns it around thinking that he can make it louder. Unfortunately, with the way that it's constructed, it only works in one direction. So, after playing it perfectly for the entire piece, he winds up for the crowning moment, and... nothing. Best ending ever, as everyone in the audience cracks up at his roar of frustration. | |
| A Chipmunk Christmas | Alvin and the Chipmunks 🙂 | Festival Brass | 2014-12-19 Live at the Grotto | A Christmas Song, as popularized by those furry little singing rodents. It gets even better in the second verse... | |
| Sky Bound | Todd Stalter | LOMCB | 2014-11-23 Celebrating Sixteen Years of Music | This piece is based on an ancient Persian poem by Rumi - "Love calls, everywhere and always. We are sky bound. Are you coming?" It starts slow, then starts to get really driving, before ending on an almost heroic note. I hope it's as much fun to listen to as it was to play. | |
| Tower of Power Greatest Hits | arr. Victor López | LOMCB | 2014-11-23 Celebrating Sixteen Years of Music | It's time to get funky with some of the most famous songs from Tower of Power! What Is Hip You're Still A Young Man Down To The Nightclub Us trombones had some fun soli lines in here, but I'm especially grateful that we had a trumpet player that could pull off the solo lines. (I'm also really pleased that we were able to get all nine of us bones to sound like one player). The first few rehearsals of this were... interesting, to say the least. Trying to get a concert band to play funk was a challenge, but I feel that we managed it well. | |
| Burn | Roland Barrett | LOMCB | 2014-11-23 Celebrating Sixteen Years of Music | It's been a while since I've played concert band music, but I was able to get in to an adult concert band - with the exception of maybe one guy, I'm the youngest person there by at least 15 years. (Maybe I just have a dirty mind, but an "adult" concert band sounds like it's a lot naughtier than it actually is. Kind of like adult cereal.) This rip-roaring piece was our encore, and it was a lot of fun to play. | |
| Roll Out The Barrel | JaromÃr Vejvoda | Festival Brass | 2014-09-27 Long Beach Oktoberfest | Have some oompah music! Roll Out The Barrel, aka Beer Barrel Polka, aka Rosamunde, aka Skoda Lasky | |
| Tailgate Ramble | Wingy Malone | Festival Brass | 2014-09-09 Holladay Park | A nice old-style jazz piece, as popularized by the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. |