Robert Beaser's Manhattan Roll in World Premiere in New Wind Band Transcription at Midwest Band Clinic, Chicago; IRIS Orchestra Performs Robert Beaser’s Folk Songs

On December 18, Steven Davis leads the University of Missouri-Kansas City Wind Ensemble through the world premiere of Robert Beaser's Manhattan Roll in its new version for wind ensemble. Premiered by the New York Philharmonic in 1998, the work is featured as part of the headlining performance at the clinic. The performance in Chicago marks the beginning of a tour for the piece that includes performances with 25 ensembles across the country.  Beaser comments on the original version for the NY Phil:

Manhattan Roll is rather atypical for me: it’s highly rhythmic, whereas my music tends to be more lyrical, though also dramatic and rhythmic up to a point. Here we have a piece that starts loud--fast and raucous--and displays strong syncopation, mixing Latin rhythms with more traditional things.

Also this month, Robert Beaser’s Folk Songs is performed by the IRIS Orchestra led by Michael Stern on Saturday, December 4 at the Germantown Performing Arts Center in Germantown, Tennessee. The performance pairs Beaser’s compositions with works by Mozart and Respighi, in a festive holiday combination. Beaser composed Folk Songs for the 2007 Aspen Festival and the work reflects his life-long interest in American folk music, “from Leadbelly to Alan Lomax,” as he puts it, and uses “shreds and patches” of folk songs couched in original material that sounds “in some spiritual way like folk songs — somewhat akin to Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words, only different.”

More details on the Midwest Band Clinic in Chicago can be found at www.midwestclinic.org.

For more information and to purchase tickets to this concert, visit www.irisorchestra.com.

Robert Beaser-Composer Profile.

Robert Beaser
Manhattan Roll (arr. 2010)
for wind ensemble
pic.2.2.ca.eb cl.3cl.bcl.cbcl.2.cbsn.ssax.asax.tsax.barsax-4.4.2.btbn.2euph.tba-perc-hp.pno(synth)-db
7'

Folk Songs (2007)
for string orchestra, harp, and timpani
15’