An annotated bibliography of contemporary works programmable by wind band and orchestra.

An annotated bibliography of contemporary works programmable by wind band and orchestra. Review

This study looked at the contemporary repertoire of college winds bands and professional orchestras. Music performed between Fall 2003 and Spring 2003 was collected from members of the College Band Directors National Association (n=23,677) and the League of American Symphony Orchestras (n=15,891). This collection reinforced the perception college wind bands program more contemporary music than professional orchestras. Also consistent with previous studies is the orchestra repertoire is centered around a core of composers. The core repertoire of the college wind band is not as narrow and is still growing. Contemporary composers were selected based on when they lived and having a minimum number of works performed by college wind bands and/or professional orchestras. From these composers (n=465) it was determined if they had composed a work performable by both college wind bands and professional orchestras. There were a total of 290 composers with 765 compositions compiled in an annotated bibliography. Biographies for each composer were drafted from available material. Information obtained for each work included composition date, duration, movements, publisher, instrumentation, premiere, commission, dedication, recordings, selected performances, program note, and the number of times it was performed during the period of the study. In order to obtain additional information publishers and composers were contacted. The resulting works consisted of compositions scored for brass ensemble, chamber winds, orchestral winds and transcriptions. Also shown is that these works also represent some of the most performed contemporary works by college wind bands and professional orchestras. This study implies works for winds and single strings (two violins, viola, cello, and string bass) would be an area worth investigating.