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Flashback
General Info
Year: 1996 / 2016
Duration: c. 5:10
Difficulty: V (see Ratings for explanation)
Publisher: Watersong Press
Cost: Score and Parts (print) – Rental ($350.00)
Instrumentation
Full Score
C Piccolo
Flute I-II
Oboe I-II
English Horn
Bassoon I-II
Contrabassoon
B-flat Soprano Clarinet I-II-III
B-flat Bass Clarinet
B-flat Contrabass Clarinet
E-flat Alto Saxophone I-II
B-flat Tenor Saxophone
E-flat Baritone Saxophone
C Trumpet I-II-III-IV
Horn in F I-II-III-IV
Trombone I-II
Bass Trombone
Euphonium
Tuba
String Bass
Piano
Harp
Timpani
Percussion I-II-III-IV-V, including:
- Bass Drum
- Chimes
- Crash Cymbals
- Glockenspiel
- Marimba
- Slapstick, large
- Snare Drum
- Splash Cymbal
- Suspended Cymbal
- Tambourine
- Tam-Tam, large
- Temple Blocks
- Tom-Toms (5)
- Triangle
- Vibraphone
- Xylophone
Errata
None discovered thus far.
Program Notes
Some of the happiest years of my young musical life were those I spent playing piano at Texas State University in John Stansberry’s wind ensemble. Two decades later, part of me still wishes I could have stayed forever.
Mr. Stansberry was quite something on the podium: energetic, motivating, communicative, full of vitality, notoriously hard to please, and, above all things, a consummate teacher. In 1996, early in my freshman year, I approached him with a band score I had then recently completed: a short, frenetic work entitled Momentum. It was among my earliest attempts at composition. To my surprise, he programmed it!
In hindsight, I would be hard pressed to think of a point more pivotal in my compositional development. It was the first piece I had written for band, my first time working with a conductor, and my first public performance of a piece for large ensemble. It was this experience, as much as any other, that led me to music composition.
Many years passed. I graduated, moved to New York, continued my studies, and eventually became a college teacher myself. Mr. Stansberry and I remained in touch until the end of his life.
When Clay Stansberry asked if I would compose a tribute to his father’s memory, one he would conduct with his own band at Legacy High School in Broomfield, Colorado, I was honored. I began, not in my usual way by sketching or improvising at the piano, but by pulling that early band score out of a dusty drawer where it had sat untouched for almost twenty years.
My original thought was to tweak, tighten, and perhaps touch up a few loose details. But soon, the process took on a life of its own. I found myself making changes to virtually every note of every bar. Shorter passages were expanded. New themes emerged. Harmonies once limited by a young composer’s not-yet-fully-developed technique were now traveling rapidly to new destinations. Just as I could never go back in time and play again in Mr. Stansberry’s band, I could not separate myself from my own compositional development in the intervening two decades.
Not a single measure remains intact from the previous version. The new work, so radically different from its predecessor, demanded a more suitable title. Yet, the initial idea from so many years previous -- its overall structure, its short melody in the Lydian mode -- can still be recognized in what is now quite literally a flashback. The result is not a revision but rather a collaboration between a composer and his younger self, both of whom owe an enormous gratitude to John Stansberry.
- Program Note by composer
Media
- Audio: Reference recording. Ensemble and conductor unknown
- Audio CD: Drake University Wind Symphony (Robert Meunier, conductor)
State Ratings
None discovered thus far.
Performances
To submit a performance please join The Wind Repertory Project
- Washington State University (Pullman) Symphonic Wind Ensemble (Dahn Pham, conductor) – 2 October 2019
- Indiana University of Pennsylvania (Indiana, Penn.) Wind Ensemble (Timothy Paul, conductor) – 2 March 2019
- University of North Texas (Denton) Wind Ensemble (Nicholas E. Williams, conductor) – 10 April 2018
- Cedar Park (Tex.) Winds Community Band (Christopher Yee, conductor) - 20 December 2017 (2017 Midwest Clinic)
- Legacy High School (Broomfield, Colo.) Wind Ensemble (Clay Stansberry conductor) – 4 March 2017 *Premiere Performance*
Works for Winds by This Composer
- Affirmation (2014)
- Flashback (1996/2016)
- Horizon (2021)
- Momentum (1997)
- River Sanctuary (1998)
- A Solemn Place (2013)
- Song for Silent Voices (2018)
- Tower Ascending (2009)
Resources
- Chamberlin, Reed. "Flashback." In Teaching Music through Performance in Band. Volume 12, Compiled and edited by Andrew Trachsel, 767-772. Chicago: GIA Publications, 2021.
- Michael Scott Butler, personal correspondence, December 2018
- Wayne Oquin website Accessed 14 December 2017