Download File - Acadia Junior High Band

Carpathian Sketches
Robert Jager
About the piece:
“Carpathian Sketches” is a musical impression, using original melodies by the composer,
of the strength and beauty of the Czechoslovakian people. The title is taken from the
Carpathian mountain range that is an expansion of the Alps, running through Eastern Europe.
The music captures the flavor and spirit of the Slavic people through its unusual harmonic
progressions and dance-like qualities. Composed in 1977, the work is approximately three
minutes and forty-five seconds in length.” (Teaching Music Through Performance, Vol. I, p.81)
The Carpathian Mountain range is a crescent-shaped range in east central Europe that
extends for approximately 900 miles.
The folk music of the region has always fascinated composers and listeners, with its unusual
characteristics of rhythm, harmony, and melodic line. Bela Bartok (1882-1945), from 19051917, collected and studied the folk music of eastern Europe, publishing collections of folk
songs he had personally gathered and recorded. This eastern European sound, with its wide
variety of styles, is personified in a number of well-known composers: Bartok, Leos Janacek,
Zoltan Kodaly, Bedrich Smetana and Antonin Dvorak.
About the composer:
Robert Jager was born in 1939 in Binghampton, New York, and attended Wheaton College and the
University of Michigan. He served four years in the United States Navy as a staff arranger at the Armed
Forces School of Music. He [taught] theory, analysis, and composition at Tennessee Tech University.
Jager has received a number of awards for his music, including the ABA-Oswald Award in 1964, 1968 and
1972…(Teaching Music Through Performance, Vol. I, p.81)
A Little French Suite by Pierre La Plante is based on three “chansons populaires” from
France. The “March” is based on a popular song from the 1700’s, “J’ai du bon tobac”, as well as the tune
“Sur le Pont d’Avignon”, a melody that is familiar to many North American children. The second
movement (“Serenade”) is based on “Cadet Rouselle”, a song about about a happy-go-lucky young man.
La Plante slowed the tempo for this movement to create a mood that is reflective and wistful. The third
movement (“Finale”) is based on “Il etait u’n bergere”, a humorous round about a shepherdess whose
mischievous cat gets into the delicious cheese she has just made.
About the composer:
A lifelong student and teacher of music, Pierre LaPlante was born September 25, 1943, in West Allis,
Wis. He grew up in Sturgeon Bay, Wis. where he was active in the high school band, choir, and theater.
LaPlante received a Music Clinic tuition scholarship to attend the University of Wisconsin at Madison,
where he earned his Bachelor of Music (1967) and Master of Music (1972) degrees.
In the fall of 1967, LaPlante began his teaching career in the Blanchardville, Wis. public school system
(now Pecatonica Area Schools). There, he directed the high school band and chorus. In 1972, LaPlante
went to Prescott, Wis. to direct the high school concert band, marching band, and choir. He returned to
Blanchardville in 1975 to teach general music for grades K—6 and beginning band. He retired from
Blanchardville in 2001.and the United States. His first piece, Western Portrait, was published in 1976.
Dinosaurs was written specifically for educational purposes in a realistic setting. It was
commissioned by the Moscow Junior High band in Moscow, Idaho. The conductor, Dale Kleinert,
requested a piece with rhythmical intensity, using some minimalism, singing, accessory instruments with
the same kind of integrity and respect as traditional instruments, and challenging percussion parts.
Composer Daniel Bukvich went a step further, visiting the school and taking special note of some of the
dilapidated percussion instruments. He utilized the unique timbre produced by the school's broken
drums and featured it in the piece. The composition has several sections intended to represent various
scenes: “Brontosaurus”, “Triceratops Fanfare”, “Cave of the Stegosaurus”, “Swamp of the Iguanadons”,
and “Tyrannosaurus Meets the Pterodactyls”.
About the composer:
Daniel Bukvich was born and raised in Montana, U.S.A., and has taught at the University of Idaho since
1976. He travels (reluctantly) throughout the United States and Canada as a guest composer, conductor,
and percussionist in concerts with professional, college, high school, and grade school bands, orchestras,
choirs, honor and all-state groups and has been known to appear at similar events in Europe and East
Asia.His teachers have been among the leading composers, conductors, and educators in the Western
United States.