DECLARATION OVERTURE

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COMPOSED BY CLAUDE SMITH, DEDICATED TO HIS WIFE MAUREEN. PREMIERED BY THE N. CAROLINA BANDMASTERS HONORS BAND IN 1975. MR. SMITH DIED OF A HEART ATTACK IN 1987 AFTER CONDUCTING A CHRISTMAS CONCERT AT HIS CHURCH. PERFORMED BY THE 1977 TEXAS TECH BAND.

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Symphonic Band Performances

Contemporary band compositions, classical music arrangements, marches, jazz, symphonies, overtures. A collection from bands that I have played in throughout hi

Hello and welcome! "Symphonic Band Performances" is a compilation of recordings from several high school and college bands that I played in including the TMEA (Texas) All State Band, the TMEA Region X All Region Band, the Interlochen Arts Academy National Music Camp, the Cal Poly Tech Band, San Luis Obispo, the USAF Golden West Band, and recordings from my h.s. band, Beaumont H.S. and a few band recordings that were passed down to me. Also included are various All State groups and college and university bands. I participated and played in the large majority of these recordings. There are no professional recordings here and every recording is Public Domain. Most are available for free download. Each song has been converted from the original analog or digital source and edited with Audacity or Dak software. In the majority of these recordings, I play the tenor sax or alto sax, b flat or e flat clarinet, or directing. I was drum major for 2 years in high school, I have a BA from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, where I studied music ed, composition and theory. I had about 500 more recordings I was planning to digitize and upload, but this past Nov. 20th, my home was completely destroyed by fire, and all the contents, including all my music and instruments. So, this is it. Please feel free to post a comment here or on my member page. If you like, please become a fan by clicking "I'm a fan" below.

Song Info

Genre

Classical • Contemporary

Charts

Peak #54

Peak in subgenre #11

Rights

public domain

Uploaded

March 29, 2009

Track Files

MP3

MP3 6.3 MB • 192 kbps • 4:36

Story behind the song

Claude Thomas Smith, a prominent American educator, conductor, and composer, was born in Monroe City, Missouri on March 14, 1932 to Claude Melvin and Harriet Thomas Smith. The family moved twice in Smith's early years: to Kansas City shortly after his birth and to Carrollton, Missouri around the time that he entered school. Smith took dancing lessons in both locations, and began piano lessons and participated in school music and theater productions while living in Carrollton. During this time, his grandmother, a piano teacher and organist, indirectly influenced him through informal musical contact. Smith first participated in band in the eighth grade after receiving a cornet for Christmas. Harold Arehart assumed the band directorship at the Carrollton Schools in 1947, and had a significant influence on Smith who studied cornet with him and served as his assistant. Smith's conducting can be traced to this time, both at high school and with a local Boy Scout band.                                                      Claude T. Smith was a prolific composer, having completed over 110 compositions for band, twelve orchestral works, and fifteen choral pieces that were described by one critic as "contemporary romantic." His pitch language is essentially analogous to Western common practice traditions, with particular emphasis on striking melodic material and bass lines that articulate functional harmonic progressions. Multiple scholars have noted, however, that toward the end of his life, Smith was using "dissonances" with increasing frequency and postulated that had he continued writing, this aspect would have become a more pervasive characteristic of his music. Smith is perhaps best known for his rhythmic practice, particularly introducing asymmetrical meters into the band idiom in 1964 with the 7/8 and oddly subdivided 9/8 measures of Emperata Overture. Some of Smith's other compositions feature continually changing meters, such as the 3/4 - 6/8 - 1/4 - 7/8 - 3/4 metrical sequence found in Acclamation. Smith is also recognized for using triplet quarter notes and hemiola techniques in many of his pieces. Taking these two facets in combination, it is apparent that through the majority of his career, Smith's use of pitch was firmly rooted in 19th-century practice, while his rhythmic syntax owed much to certain composers of the early to mid 20th-century such as Igor Stravinsky and Aaron Copland. A final notion that is frequently cited regarding Smith's music is his attention to all ensemble lines; partly stemming from his pedagogical perspective, Smith continually strove to write engaging parts for each member of the ensembles for which he composed, a facet that is particularly apparent in his percussion writing.

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