[#270] September 23, 2024
1970 | Orchestral Brass | Grade 5 | 5’- 10’ | Fanfare
Fanfare for Uncommon Times, by American composer and flutist Valerie Coleman is our Composition of the Week.
The fanfare was commissioned and premiered by Orchestra of St Luke's on June 27th, 2021, at the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, Katonah, NY, USA.
The Fanfare has a political background “to allow the orchestra to connect with the community and be a voice of the time. Usually, fanfares announce royalties or head of states or that kind of people. But the event everyone is going through right now, the pandemic, is uncommon. We are going through some strange times; it almost seems sarcastic to write a fanfare for the times we are currently living in. I wanted to create a piece that brings people together, a piece that touches that within us, that thing that wants to survive, that gives us that regenerative, renewable hope. I want to bring the Black experience in, the turmoil, the upheaval, the complexity of race conversation. The fanfare is scored for 11 brass players and percussion. There are some special features, like the use of keyboard percussion, to create the feeling of sparks of sounds, sparks of life. It is a virtuosic work. I could not help to channel Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man. It is such a part of our history in America. Through its simplicity, it makes it extremely elegant and memorable. Copland channeled the very foundation of what the very American spirit is. You are going to hear dissonances; you are going to hear this machine gun repetitive sound. But then you are going to hear something that is more turned off to the Caribbean nature. All these elements, as like in a melting pot in this country has to be put in there.”
from Caramoor Conversations, Kathy Schuman
Valerie Coleman began her music studies at the age of eleven, and by the age of fourteen had written three symphonies and won several local and state competitions. She has a double bachelor’s degree in theory/composition and flute performance from Boston University, and a master’s degree in flute performance from the Mannes College of Music. She studied flute with Julius Baker, Alan Weiss, and Mark Sparks; and composition with Martin Amlin and Randall Woolf.
She is not only the founder of Imani Winds, but is a resident composer of the ensemble, giving Imani Winds their signature piece Umoja (which is listed as one of the “Top 101 Great American Works” by Chamber Music America). In addition to her significant contributions to wind quintet literature, Valerie has a works list for various winds, brass, strings, and full orchestra.
Her work as a composer has garnered several awards such as the Herb Alpert Awards, Ragdale Prize, Van Lier Fellowship, MAPFund, ASCAP Honors Award, Chamber Music America's Classical Commissioning Program, an induction into her high school's hall of fame, and nominations from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and United States Artists.
Ms. Coleman has served on the faculty of The Juilliard School’s Music Advancement Program and Interschool Orchestras of New York. Currently, she is on the advisory panel of the National Flute Association.
More on Valerie Colman
View the score here:
Other works for winds include:
Red Clay ad Mississippi Delta (2009)
Roma (2011)
Let Woman Choose Her Sphere (2020)
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