Description
The original version of Myths & Memories was written for large woodwind ensemble, when I was composer in residence for a wind course in the Lot Valley, Southern France, for about 5 years in succession. It was my job to write a work for the whole company to play, as a finale to the concert of smaller ensemble works, which marked the end of the course.
Many of the participants attended the course every year, and this reminded me of the scattered tribes of nomadic people around the world who gather together for cultural festivals at certain times of year, before going their separate ways again, in the same way that these wind musicians gathered.
The three movements are ‘Meeting’, in which everyone arrives, chattering and exchanging news, ‘Ancient Stories’ in which the people spend their evenings, talking about cultural traditions, and telling stories, and ‘Echoes’, in which people go their separate ways, remembering everything they have heard, until they meet again the following year. I re wrote the work for wind band, to include saxophones & brass a couple of years ago.
This piece on the NCBF federation syllabus as a Grade 3 piece by a British composer.
