Here is a showstopper for your audience; this work has been known to both surprise, shock, and to delight! Your students will surely enjoy unpacking the surprises inside of this work for orchestra. There are certain elements which permeate this piece, including: majestic melodies, powerfully percussive statements, and a dizzying fugato and contrapuntal setting, in which great currents of energy are generated over the course of 11 minutes. Even as it inches ever-so-slightly into new (modern) territory, the legacy of orchestral performance is preserved fully; by the end, the entire orchestra will have become one large "Music Box." (The old fashioned kind; one with a giant hand crank on the side!)
Conceptually, this experimental work takes its cue from a TED Talk Series, in which Movie Director JJ Abrams (Cloverfield, Star Trek) referred to the philosophy of the "Mystery Box," one in which suspense is derived from that which is not seen, nor revealed. Indeed, one must approach this work with the utmost care. After all, you never know where "The Music Box" may begin, nor where it will end...
**Named a finalist in the 2023 EarShot Composers Initiative (Dallas Symphony Orchestra), and the 2022 Juilliard Composing Inclusion Initiative (with public acknowledgement by the Sphinx Organization, and the New York Philharmonic). The work can be heard in its entirety here.**
The Music Box: Fantasy for Orchestra (Grade 6)
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