Wanderings on the Divide

From Wind Repertory Project
Ted King-Smith

Ted King-Smith


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General Info

Year: 2014
Duration: c. 11:00
Difficulty: Grade 5 (see Ratings for explanation)
Publisher: Ted King-Smith
Cost: Score and Parts - Unknown

Instrumentation

Full Score
C Piccolo
Flute I-II
Oboe I-II
Bassoon I-II
B-flat Soprano Clarinet I-II-III
B-flat Bass Clarinet
B-flat Soprano Saxophone
E-flat Alto Saxophone
B-flat Tenor Saxophone
E-flat Baritone Saxophone
B-flat Trumpet I-II-III
Horn in F I-II-III-IV
Trombone I-II
Bass Trombone
Euphonium
Tuba
Timpani
Percussion I-II-III-IV

(percussion detail desired)


Errata

None discovered thus far.


Program Notes

Wanderings on the Divide is a very biographical piece that is tied to a time of my life in which I felt lost as composer and musician. Having moved from the Palouse in eastern Washington State (a region with a population below 100,000 people) to the D.C. metro, I longed for the flowing, expansive hills that I had come to call home for two years. Feeling lost and alone, I turned to my new surroundings. I would walk through the streets of Washington, D.C. with little or no direction, attempting to familiarize myself with the city; and on mountain trails in the Shenandoah Valley and George Washington Forest parks, looking for an escape from the developed world. I soon became fascinated by the extreme differences and similarities of both environments, and came to call these two a “digital” and a “natural” world.

Soon after, I began to write what is now this piece with these two worlds in mind, but without any idea what it would ultimately become. Wanderings was written on-and-off for the next two years, and the original idea of two separate environments was eventually abandoned as a narrative. However, it is still possible to hear the digital sound - bright active, and highly rhythmic; and the natural – slow, meditative, and pensive. As the direction for the piece changed, I let the material come intuitively rather than systematically, just as in my own wanderings, resulting in sections of the piece that will lead the listener confidently forward, while others will do just the opposite and create confusion.

Ultimately, Wanderings on the Divide recalls much of the natural and man-made surroundings of my time in Washington State and Washington, D.C., and delves in the introspective nature of self-discovery that many share in their young-adulthood. Lastly, during this time I was reading quite a lot of poetry. One line by Walt Whitman particularly resonated with me: “Forever forward, Forever alive.”

Premiered October 3, 2015, by the Hartt School Symphony Band and James Jackson in West Hartford, Connecticut

- Program Note by composer


Media

State Ratings

None discovered thus far.


Performances

To submit a performance please join The Wind Repertory Project

  • University of Missouri, Kansas City, Wind Ensemble (Joseph Parisi, conductor) – 4 February 2016
  • Hartt School Symphony Band, (James Jackson Conductor) - October 3, 2015

Works for Winds by This Composer


Resources