Upriver

Dan Welcher

Dan Welcher

Subtitle: For Large Wind Ensemble

General Info

Year: 2011
Duration: c. 14:00
Difficulty: V (see Ratings for explanation)
Publisher: Theodore Presser
Cost: Score and Parts – Rental   |   Score Only (print) - $40.00

Instrumentation

Full Score
C Piccolo I-II
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 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-III
Euphonium
Tuba
String Bass
Harp
Timpani
Percussion, including (among other things):

• Bones
• Frame Drum
• Jaw Harp
• Spoon

Violin

Errata

None discovered thus far.

Program Notes

Following a celebrated series of wind ensemble tone poems about national parks in the American West, Dan Welcher’s Upriver celebrates the Lewis & Clark Expedition from the Missouri River to Oregon’s Columbia Gorge, following the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. Welcher’s imaginative textures and inventiveness are freshly modern, evoking our American heritage, including references to Shenandoah and other folk songs known to have been sung on the expedition.

- Program Note from publisher

The piece is an homage to the expedition led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark across the western United States beginning in 183. Welcher writes about his work:

I have written a sizable number of works for wind ensemble that draw their inspiration from the monumental spaces found in the American West...Upriver, although it found its voice (and its finale) in the magnificent Columbia Gorge in Oregon, is about a much larger region. This piece, like its brother works about the national parks, doesn't try to tell a story. Instead, it captures the flavor of a certain time, and of a grand adventures.

Welcher quotes a number of American folk songs throughout Upriver, including Shenandoah, V'la Bon Vent, Soldier's Joy, Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier, Come Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy, and Fisher's Hornpipe.

Upriver was commissioned by a consortium of college band directors led by Timothy A. Paul of the University of Oregon. Its premiere was given on March 6, 2011, by the University of Oregon Wind Ensemble, with Paul conducting.

- Program Note from Teaching Music Through Performance in Band

Commercial Discography

• Audio CD: Oregon State University Wind Ensemble (Christopher C. Chapman, conductor) - 2014

State Ratings

None discovered thus far.

Performances

To submit a performance please join The Wind Repertory Project

• Indiana University of Pennsylvania Wind Ensemble (Jack Stamp, conductor) – 2012

Works for Winds by This Composer

• Arches (1985)
• Castle Creek (1989/2009)
• Circular Marches. See: Symphony No. 3, "Shaker Life"
• Downshifting (2014)
• For the Mystic Harmony (2017)
• Glacier (2003)
• Hauntings (1986)
• Laboring Songs. See: Symphony No. 3, "Shaker Life"
• Minstrels of the Kells (2002)
• Perpetual Song (2008)
• Songs Without Words (2001/2007)
• Spumante (1998/1999)
• Symphony No. 3, "Shaker Life" (1997)
  • Laboring Songs
  • Circular Marches (1997)
• Symphony No. 4, "American Visionary" (2005)
• Symphony No. 6, "Three Places in the East" (2017)
• Upriver (2011)
• The Yellowstone Fires (1998)
• Zion (1994)

Resources

• Cicconi, C. (2017). The Band Music Handbook: A Catalog of Emerging Band Repertoire. Rowman & Littlefield: Lanham, Md.
• Dan Welcher website Accessed 5 September 2017
• Welcher, D. (2012). Upriver: For Large Wind Ensemble (2010) [score]. Elkan Vogel: [King of Prussia, Penn.]
• Robinson, David D. "Upriver." In Teaching Music through Performance in Band. Volume 9, edit. &