University of Maryland doctoral conducting students Brian Coffill and David Wacyk have been selected, through a juried application process, to give poster presentations at the 2017 College Band Directors National Conference in Kansas City, Missouri. David will be presenting his paper, "Stravinsky's Symphonies of Wind Instruments: Toward a New Understanding of Pitch Structure​," on Thursday, March 16, and Brian will be presenting his paper, "Charles Ives' Decoration Day: A Con

Charles Edward Ives, the convention-shattering American modernist composer, was born 142 years ago today, October 20th, 1874, in Danbury, Connecticut. Ives would later pen some of the most remarkable music every composed, anticipating many later twentieth-century musical innovations by decades, and establishing himself as one of the first true American master composers. Ives had early musical training from his father, a creative Civil War bandmaster named George Ives, who was

Decoration Day Charles E. Ives Born: October 20, 1874, Danbury, Connecticut Died: May 19, 1954, New York, New York Original Instrumentation: Orchestra Duration: 9 minutes Composed: 1912 Arranged: Jonathan Elkus, 1962 Charles Ives’ Decoration Day, a dreamy haze of almost-forgotten memories and half-remembered tunes, depicts recollections American Civil War through the eyes of a Connecticut youth at the end of the nineteenth century. The work, originally published as the second

Overture and March “1776” Charles E. Ives Born: October 20, 1874, Danbury, Connecticut Died: May 19, 1954, New York, New York Original Instrumentation: Theater Orchestra Duration: 3 minutes Composed: 1903-1914 Arranged: James B. Sinclair, 1975 Program note from the printed score: Overture and March “1776” was originally conceived for a play by Ives' uncle, Lyman Brewster. The plan of making an opera from Major John Andre never materialized, so Ives’s overture was never perfor

Charles Ives is a composer that has not been discussed on this blog as of yet. Although Ives is not a composer that we generally consider a "band" composer, many of his works for winds are quite excellent. His "Country Band March" contains many compositional techniques that are considered quintessentially "Ives", especially his wit and irony. Program notes from the printed score are below. Country Band March was composed around 1903, four years after Ives' graduation from Yal