Rosa Parks Boulevard

From Wind Repertory Project
Michael Daugherty

Michael Daugherty


Subtitle: For Three Trombones and Band


General Info

Year: 2000 /2003
Duration: 12:15
Difficulty: VI (see Ratings for explanation)
Original Medium: Orchestra
Publisher: Peer Music Ltd.
Cost: Score and Parts - Unknown   |   Score Only - $29.95


Instrumentation

Full Score
Solo Trombone I-II-III
Piccolo
Flute I-II-III-IV
Oboe I-II
English Horn
Bassoon I-II
Contrabassoon
B-flat Soprano Clarinet I-II-III-IV
B-flat Bass Clarinet
B-flat Soprano Saxophone
E0flat Alto Saxophone
B-flat Tenor Saxophone
E-flat Baritone Saxophone
Horns in F I-II-III-IV
B-flat or C Trumpet I-II-III-IV
Trombone I-II
Bass Trombone
Euphonium I-II
Tuba I-II
Harp
String Bass (2)
Timpani
Percussion (4 players), including:

  • Bass Drum
  • Chimes
  • Glockenspiel
  • Chinese Gong (small)
  • Splash Cymbal (2: 10" & 12")
  • Suspended Cymbal (2: 18" & 20")
  • Tom-Toms (4)
  • Triangle (small, medium, large)
  • Vibraphone
  • Woodblock (small, medium, large)


Errata

None discovered thus far.


Program Notes

Rosa Parks Boulevard for Symphony Band was commissioned by the University of Michigan Symphony Band. Its first performance was given by the University of Michigan Symphony Band, conducted by H. Robert Reynolds, in Detroit, Michigan, on April 6, 2001. Of the work, the composer writes:

Rosa Parks Boulevard pays tribute to the woman who helped set in motion the modern civil rights movement by her refusal to move to the back of the bus in 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama. In 1957, she came to Detroit, Michigan, where she has lived ever since. Once of the many honors bestowed upon Rosa Parks is a boulevard named after her, located in downtown Detroit. For me, Rosa Parks stands for the willingness to challenge boundaries and cross over them.

In the fall of 1999, I had the pleasure of attending a Sunday church service with Rosa Parks, at the St. Matthew African Methodist Episcopal Church in Detroit. For more than four decades she has attended this modest church with the motto: "the Church Where Everybody is Somebody," hand-painted over its entrance. During the four-hour service, I joined in with Rosa Parks and the congregation to sing various gospel hymns and hear the inspired oratory from the preacher, Reverend Robinson.

From her association with the Reverend Martin Luther King in the fifties to the present day, the spirit of the African-American preacher has been a source of strength to Rosa Parks. The African-American poet James Weldon Johnson was also inspired by the voice of the preacher in his 1927 volume of poetry, entitled God's Trombones. In his preface he describes how the preacher "strode the pulpit up and down in what was actually a very rhythmic dance, and he brought into play the full gamut of his wonderful voice, a voice -- what shall I say? -- not of an organ or a trumpet, but rather of a trombone, the instrument possessing, above all others, the power to express the wide and varied range of emotions encompassed by the human voice - and with greater amplitude. He intoned, he moaned, he pleaded -- he blared, he crashed, he thundered. I sat fascinated; and more, I was, perhaps against my will, deeply moved; the emotional effect upon me was irresistible."

After the church service, Rosa Parks told me her favorite piece of music was the traditional African-American spiritual, Oh Freedom. Fragments of this melody are played in musical canons by the trombone section, echoing the voices of many generations of African-American preachers in Detroit and throughout America. In addition to the soulful trombones, I composed a musical motive which I associate with Rosa Parks. It is first heard in the woodwinds and vibraphone. These lyrical sections alternate with a turbulent bus ride, evoked by atonal polyrhythms in the trumpets, horns and percussion instruments. The recurrence of ominous beating in the bass drum reminds us that while progress was made in civil rights in the twentieth century, there is still much to be done in the twenty-first century.

- Program Note by composer


Media


State Ratings

None discovered thus far.


Performances

To submit a performance please join The Wind Repertory Project

  • University of Kentucky (Lexington) Wind Symphony (John Cody Birdwell, conductor) - 15 October 2023
  • University of Denver (Colo.) Lamont Wind Ensemble (Joseph Martin, conductor) - 1 February 2023
  • West Virginia University (Morgantown) Wind Symphony (Scott C. Tobias, conductor) - 26 April 2022
  • Ball State University (Muncie, Ind.) Wind Ensemble (Thomas Caneva, conductor) – 16 February 2019
  • Kennesaw (Ga.) State University Wind Symphony (Debra Traficante, conductor) – 1 March 2018
  • Lone Star Wind Orchestra (Dallas, Tx.) (Eugene Migliaro Corporon, conductor) – 8 February 2018
  • Eastman School of Music (Rochester, N.Y.) Wind Orchestra (Mark Scatterday, conductor) -17 April 2017
  • University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Wind Ensemble (Scott Teeple, conductor) – 25 February 2017
  • University of Florida (Gainesville) Wind Symphony (David Waybright, conductor) – 22 January 2015


Works for Winds by This Composer

Adaptable Music


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