MARCH!

From Wind Repertory Project
Jennifer Jolley (photo: Liz Glenn)

Jennifer Jolley


The title of this work is intentionally fully capitalized: MARCH!


General Info

Year: 2020
Duration: c. 9:40
Difficulty: V (see Ratings for explanation)
Publisher: Jennifer Jolley
Cost: Score and Parts – Rental ($350.00)


Instrumentation

Full Score
C Piccolo
Flute I-II (I doubling Piccolo)
Oboe I-II
Bassoon I-II
E-flat Soprano Clarinet
B-flat Soprano Clarinet I-II-III
B-flat Bass Clarinet
E-flat Alto Saxophone I-II
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
String Bass
Timpani
Percussion I-II-III-IV, including:

  • Anvil
  • Bass Drum
  • Crash Cymbals
  • Desk Bell
  • Glockenspiel
  • Ratchet
  • Snare Drum
  • Tam-tam
  • Triangle
  • Xylophone

Fixed Media

Players humming


Errata

In Score:

  • Trumpet I-II, m.200: Written in transposed pitch, it should be in concert pitch. Parts are correct.


Program Notes

When I received a commission from the American Bandmasters Association, I knew that I wanted to write a march. How do you not write one for an organization that John Philip Sousa belonged to? Besides, who doesn’t love a good march? Their rhythmic drive and infectious melodies are irresistible. Even the word itself -- “march” -- is sharp and percussive. It’s like they were engineered to give us sonic sugar highs. Yet there is another side to the sonic pleasures of the march -- since antiquity, marches have been recognized and principally employed to incite combatants gearing up for battle.

At first it seemed strange to make this association. The migration of the march from martial processions that celebrated rulers and nations to an art-music genre performed in the auditoriums of educational institutions is usually dated to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The ardor it inspires has long been divorced from the promotion of grim acts of violence. At best, the march motivates decidedly non-lethal athletic competition. I realized, however, during my research and writing of this piece that this is only a partial description and that the march’s original functions have persisted.

This is because the story of the march’s conversion to political neutrality isn’t one narrative but two. While it is true that the march retreated to the aesthetic realm in Europe and the United States, it was simultaneously advancing in the accompaniment of political and economic dominion abroad. Though often uncredited, it’s actually the march that introduces Western music to the non-Western world. It wasn’t orchestras performing the canon in concert halls, but military bands playing amongst cannons in colonial ports. For much of humanity, the reception of the march is impossible to uncouple from the imperial project it provided a soundtrack to. Moreover, we see this legacy of the march continue today only on a global scale. New marches are being written for elected officials, sovereigns, and the increasing number of despots and proto-autocrats to legitimize their stations, to provoke expansionist and nationalist fantasies, and to inflame their followers.

With March! I wanted to follow my connections to both legacies. The work is a combination of my devotion to a type of musical composition and my uncertain feelings towards its historical past and present. Fortunately, I had a precedent in the form of Dmitri Shostakovich’s March of the Soviet Militia (1970) to offer assistance in my efforts (listeners may detect a loose homage to his work in my opening). Like Shostakovich’s late work, my march is a dark parody. But where Shostakovich used the march form in excess to turn pomp into pomposity in “honor” of a brutal armed force, I sought to deconstruct my march. I wanted my crisp, uncomplicated anthems and quotations of unsettling North Korean patriotic melodies to be interrupted and broken apart by irreverent percussion, sputtering tempos and audio taken from the Korean demilitarized zone. My intention was to blunt the march’s aural seductions. I still wanted the bravado, but I wanted to make it insubstantial and alienating.

Importantly, I depart from Shostakovich in my proximity to the brutal regime referenced. He lived in the midst of the Stalinist nightmare. I exist in a wounded but still functioning liberal democracy far from the nightmare of the Kim dynasty. And while there is personal connection -- my mother was orphaned during the Korean War -- the selection of North Korean marches should ultimately be understood as representative of our contemporary moment: one where dictatorships and backsliding democracies embrace repression, ethno-nationalism, and brutality to thunderous cheers and fanfare.

- Program Note by composer


Commissioned by and dedicated to the American Bandmasters Association and the University of Florida Bands

- Program Note from score


Awards

  • NBA/William D. Revelli Memorial Band Competition Contest, 2021, runner-up


Media


State Ratings

None discovered thus far.


Performances

To submit a performance please join The Wind Repertory Project

  • University of Utah Wind Ensemble (Salt Lake City) (Austin Hilla, conductor) - 30 January 2024
  • University of Hawai'i Wind Ensemble (Honolulu) (Jeffrey Boeckman, conductor) - 3 December 2023
  • Concord-Carlisle High School Band (Concord, Ma.) (Christopher Noce, conductor) - 2 November 2023
  • Northern Kentucky University (Highland Heights) Symphonic Winds (Nikk Pilato, conductor) - 5 October 2023
  • University of North Carolina School for the Arts Wind Ensemble (Winston-Salem) (Mark Norman, conductor) - 22 September 2023
  • Notre Dame College Wind Ensemble (South Euclid, Oh.) (Michael Krueger, conductor) - 25 February 2023
  • University of Louisiana at Lafayette Symphonic Winds (Jason Missal, conductor) - 17 February 2023
  • Concordia College (Moorhead, Minn.) Band (Peter Haberman, conductor) - 12 February 2023
  • Illinois State University (Normal) Wind Symphony (Anthony C. Marinello, conductor) - 4 December 2022
  • Saratoga (Calif.) High School Concert Band (Michael Boitz, conductor) – 20 July 2022 WASBE Conference (Prague, Czech Republic)
  • Southeastern Louisiana University (Hammond) Wind Symphony (Robert M. Schwartz, conductor) - 5 May 2022
  • University of Nebraska-Lincoln Wind Ensemble (Carolyn Barber, conductor) – 8 April 2022 (CBDNA 2022 North Central Conference, Madison, Wisc.)
  • Texas Tech University (Lubbock) Symphonic Wind Ensemble (Sarah McKoin, conductor) - 18 November 2021
  • Denison University (Granville, Ohio) Wind Ensemble (Chris David Westover-Muñez, conductor) - 16 November 2021
  • University of Missouri at Kansas City Wind Symphony (Steven D. Davis, conductor) - 21 October 2021


Works for Winds by This Composer

Adaptable Music


All Wind Works


Resources

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