La flor más linda

From Wind Repertory Project
Gilda Lyons

Gilda Lyons


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General Info

Year: 2019
Duration: c. 6:00
Difficulty: (see Ratings for explanation)
Publisher: Gilda Lyons
Cost: Score and Parts (print) -Unknown   |   Score Only (print) - $35.00


Instrumentation

Full Score
Flute I-II (I doubling Piccolo)
Oboe I-II
Bassoon I-II
B-flat Soprano Clarinet I-II
B-flat Bass Clarinet
B-flat Soprano Saxophone
E-flat Alto Saxophone
B-flat Tenor Saxophone
E-flat Baritone Saxophone
B-flat Trumpet
Horn in F I-II
Trombone
String Bass
Piano
Percussion I-II

(percussion detail desired)

Players singing


Errata

None discovered thus far.


Program Notes

In September 2018, as protesters from Nicaragua's Carazo region prepared to march against the increasingly dictatorial Ortega government, my tios (my aunt and uncle) wrote us with pictures of blockades and descriptions of the armed forces that awaited protesters. A world away, I responded by recording and posting a verse of Carlos Mejia Godoy's Nicaragua, Nicaraguita, a song that has become as clear a symbol of the resistance as the blue and white Nicaraguan flag. It was a cry into the abyss, but, to my surprise, it actually landed with dear ones and their friends in Nicaragua who wrote that they felt our family standing with them. From this urgent sense of reaching across distance through music grew la flor mas linda, written for Glen Adsit, Edward Cumming, and the Foot in the Door Ensemble.

With arms outstretched through sound, sonic images I associate with Nicaragua are slammed together: the basilica bells that toll freely during the Festival of San Sebastián; the pito and chischiles of the dance of the Toro Huaco, for which stand in flute and maracas; the firecrackers that announce celebration; scalar gestures that conjure the strong wind that blows through Diriamba, my mother's home town; fragments from Los Amores de Abraham, a tune my grandfather and his brothers played in their ensemble Marimba Diriangen; and a single gesture from Godoy's Nicaragua, Nicaraguita. Despite an impulse to center on vibrant imagery, celebratory sound mutates into the sinister, and song becomes lament. Estamos con la gente de Nicaragua, siempre. Viva Nicaragua libre.

- Program Note by composer for Foot in the Door Ensemble concert program, 22 February 2019


Media

(Needed - please join the WRP if you can help.)


State Ratings

None discovered thus far.


Performances

To submit a performance please join The Wind Repertory Project

  • Florida State University (Tallahassee) Wind Orchestra (Michael Tignor, conductor) - 15 November 2023
  • Eastman School of Music (Rochester, N.Y.) Wind Orchestra (Mason St. Pierre, conductor) - 12 December 2022
  • Indiana University (Bloomington) Wind Ensemble (Rodney Dorsey, conductor) – 1 November 2022
  • University of Illinois (Champaign) Wind Symphony (Cynthia Johnston Turner, conductor) - 3 March 2022 (87th Annual ABA National Convention)
  • Lone Star Wind Orchestra (Richardson, Tx.) (Eugene Migliaro Corporon, conductor) - 9 May 2021
  • University of Miami (Fla.) Frost Wind Ensemble (Tina DiMeglio, conductor) - 22 November 2020
  • University of Texas (Austin) Symphony Band (Ryan Kelly, conductor) – 9 December 2019
  • University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) Symphony Band (Michael Haithcock, conductor) – 23 October 2019
  • Yale University (New Haven, Conn.) Concert Band (Thomas Duffy, conductor) – 4 October 2019
  • Hartt School (Hartford, Conn.) Foot in the Door Ensemble (Glen Adsit, conductor) – 22 February 2019 (CBDNA 2019 National Conference, Tempe, Ariz.) *Premiere performance*


Works for Winds by This Composer


Resources

  • Gilda Lyons website Accessed 21 January 2019
  • The Horizon Leans Forward…, compiled and edited by Erik Kar Jun Leung, GIA Publications, 2021, p. 402.