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Variations on “America” by Charles Ives as Heard on the Jingle Jangle Morning in Emerson Playground by You and the Signers of the United States Constitution (and who knows, maybe the FBI)
David Borden (ed. James Spinazzola)
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General Info
Year: 1968 /
Duration: c. 11:45
Difficulty: (see Ratings for explanation)
Publisher: Unknown
Cost: Score and Parts - Unknown
Instrumentation
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Recorded voices and other sounds
Errata
None discovered thus far.
Program Notes
The composer was inspired by "flag-waver" music, patriotic music that inspires audiences to wave little flags. But the finished product is anything but proudly American, centering as it does on the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King.
Commissioned for the Ithaca High School band with assistance from Music Educators National Conference (known today as the National Association for Music Educators), Variations on America by Charles Ives as Heard… reflects a fascination with electronic music while swiftly succeeding in the commissioning project’s primary goal: to prompt student musicians to think differently about how music can sound and be performed. In the piece, Borden blends acoustic sounds of winds and percussion with synthesized patches and clips pulled from American television and radio of the late ‘60s. This aesthetic, when combined with Ives’ source material, results in a sound world that is simultaneously sardonic and thought-provoking, reflecting both the composer’s inquiry into the possibilities of combining electronic and acoustic sonic materials and his frustration with the political turmoil which pervaded the U.S. in 1968.
- Program Note by Louis Menchaca for the Ithaca College Wind Ensemble concert program, 6 December 2021
Media
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State Ratings
None discovered thus far.
Performances
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- Ithaca (N.Y.) College Wind Ensemble (James Spinazzola, conductor) - 6 December 2021
- Cornell University (Ithaca, N.Y.) Wind Symphony (James Spinazzola, conductor) – 10 March 2018 (CBDNA 2018 Eastern Conference, New Haven, Conn.)
- Cornell University (Ithaca, N.Y.) Wind Ensemble (Marice Stith, conductor) – 1970
Works for Winds by This Composer
- All American Teenage Love Songs (1967)
- Notes from Vienna (1994)
- Variations on “America” by Charles Ives as Heard on the Jingle Jangle Morning in Emerson Playground by You and the Signers of the United States Constitution (and who knows, maybe the FBI) (ed. Spinazzola) (1968)
Resources
- Mother Mallard Accessed 10 October 2017