Vox Populi

Richard Danielpour

The title translates from the Latin as "Voice of the People."

General Info

Year: 1998 / 2004
Duration: c. 6:15
Difficulty: V (see Ratings for explanation)
Original Medium: Orchestra
Publisher: Associated Music Publishers
Cost: Score and Parts - $110.00 | Score Only - $10.00

Instrumentation

Full Score
Flute I-II-III (II and III doubling Piccolo)
Oboe I-II
Bassoon I-II-III
B-flat Soprano Clarinet I-II-III
B-flat Bass Clarinet
B-flat Contrabass Clarinet
B-flat Soprano Saxophone
E-flat Alto Saxophone I-II
B-flat Tenor Saxophone
E-flat Baritone Saxophone
B-flat Cornet I-II
B-flat Trumpet I-II-III
Horn in F I-II-III-IV
Trombone I-II
Bass Trombone
Euphonium
Tuba
String Bass
Piano
Timpani
Percussion I-VI, including:

Bass Drum
Bongos
Brake Drum
Chimes
Claves
Conga
Cowbell
Gong
Hi-Hat
Marimba
Ruten
Suspended Cymbal
Tam-Tam
Tom-Tom
Vibraphone
Wood Block
Xylophone

Errata

None discovered thus far.

Program Notes

“It is a privilege to be witness to this confusion.” So spoke a visitor who attended a meeting of the state legislature. The archetypical New England Town Hall meeting is not always a calm, measured discourse of ideas. Rather, opinions are expressed, sometimes vigorously, and people speak out of turn. Vox Populi depicts this well. Richard Danielpour wrote this work in 1998 as a concert overture for the Evansville, Indiana, Philharmonic Orchestra. Dr. Jack Stamp made the band transcription.

- Program Note from Heritage Encyclopedia of Band Music

In a conversation with this writer, Danielpour admitted he is “booked solidly” but made room in his busy schedule for the Eykamp commission in part because it is a rare honor to be asked to provide music to inaugurate a new hall. He also took the assignment as a gesture of personal and professional friendship for Maestro Alfred Savia, who has been a loyal champion of Danielpour’s work since 1992, when the Evansville Philharmonic performed his First Light. Since then, composer and conductor have kept in constant touch, and Maestro Savia programmed a second Danielpour work in Evansville, Toward the Splendid City, in 1996.

The Eykamp commission also gave Danielpour the opportunity to include in his catalog a short piece, less than ten minutes, which G. Schirmer, his publisher, had been requesting. And he was challenged, he said, to write a piece that would be eminently playable. Vox Populi, he believes, is likely to sound more difficult than it actually is.

The Latin title Vox Populi, “voice of the people,” reflects the fact that Danielpour began the piece in Italy in June, at a villa in Tuscany where he has composed for several years. There he set down the first draft in four days of intensive work. He then returned to the United States to begin a residency at the Marlboro Music Festival, where he began working on the orchestration during the first ten days of July. At the end of that month he finished the piece at Yaddo, an artists’ community in Saratoga Springs, New York.

The title is also an allusion to the fact that Evansville is a place where the “voice of the people” means something, where people from all walks of life join together to make things happen, such as rescuing a historic theater and returning it to artistic usefulness.

Vox Populi is developed using traditional “classical” music techniques, but it is flavored with ideas and sounds and rhythms that are rooted in American popular music and jazz, which has been the people’s musical voice. And the definition of popular music is elastic enough here to include a large chronological sweep. There is even a “certain wink” in places, particularly in the brass writing, at the popular music of the 1920s, appropriate for a hall originally built in 1919.

The music itself is also traditional in the sense that, although it moves forward in time, it retains a certain internal nostalgia, remembering where it has been and alluding to its past. The form of the work can be characterized as an “arch,” in the center of which the music turns back on itself, discards the accretions of its previous progress, and returns to its beginnings. In its musical structure Vox Populi is a veritable metaphor for the structure in which it was being premiered, the restored Victory Theatre.

- Program Note from publisher

Media

Audio: Reference recording. Ensemble and conductor unknown
Audio CD: Indiana University of Pennsylvania Wind Ensemble (Jack Stamp, conductor) - 2004

State Ratings

Georgia: VI
Louisiana: V
Michigan: Senior High AA
North Carolina: VI
Texas: V. Complete

Performances

To submit a performance please join The Wind Repertory Project

Baylor University (Waco, Texas) Symphonic Band (Isaiah Odajima, conductor) - 29 April 2022
State University of New York, Potsdam, Symphonic Band (Brian K. Doyle, conductor) – 21 November 2019
Florida State University (Tallahassee, Fla.) Wind Orchestra (Richard Clary, conductor) - 24 April 2018
University of Kansas (Lawrence) Symphonic Band (Nick Waldron, conductor) – 6 March 2018
Gettysburg (Penn.) College Wind Symphony (Russell McCutcheon, conductor) – 17 November 2017
State University of New York, Potsdam, Symphonic Band (Bryan Doyle, conductor) – 21 April 2016
University of California, Los Angeles, (UCLA) Wind Ensemble (Travis J. Cross, conductor) - 27 May 2015
Indiana University (Bloomington) Wind Ensemble (Steven D. Davis, conductor) – March 1, 2012 (ABA 2012 Annual Convention (Indianapolis, Indiana))
Texas Tech Symphonic Band (Lubbock) (Christopher Anderson, conductor) - Fall 2009

Works for Winds by This Composer

Benediction
Icarus (2009)
Toward the Splendid City (1992/2017)
Voice of the City (2005)
Vox Populi (ed. Jack Stamp) (1998/2004)

Resources

Danielpour, R.; Stamp, J. (2004). Vox Populi: For Concert Band [score]. Associated Music Publishers: New York.
Genevro, Bradley J. "Vox populi." In Teaching Music through Performance in Band. Volume 6, edit. & comp. by Richard Miles, 728-734. Chicago: GIA Publications, 2007.
Heritage Encyclopedia of Band Music. "Richard Danielpour." Accessed 28 May 2015