David Maslanka (b. 1943)
David Maslanka was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1943. He attended the Oberlin College Conservatory where he studied composition with Joseph Wood. He spent a year at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, and did masters and doctoral study in composition at Michigan State University where his principal teacher was H. Owen Reed.
Maslanka’s music for winds has become especially well known. Among his more than 150 works are over 50 pieces for wind ensemble, including eight symphonies, seventeen concertos, a Mass, and many concert pieces. His chamber music includes four wind quintets, five saxophone quartets, and many works for solo instrument and piano. In addition, he has written a variety of orchestral and choral pieces.
David Maslanka’s compositions are published by Maslanka Press, Carl Fischer, Kjos Music, Marimba Productions, and OU Percussion Press. They have been recorded on Albany, Reference Recordings, BIS (Sweden), Naxos, Cambria, CRI, Mark, Novisse, AUR, Cafua (Japan), Brain Music (Japan), Barking Dog, and Klavier labels. He served on the faculties of the State University of New York at Geneseo, Sarah Lawrence College, New York University, and Kingsborough Community College of the City University of New York, and was a freelance composer in Missoula, Montana from 1990 until his death in 2017.
Illumination (2013)
“Illumination” -- lighting up, bringing light. I am especially interested in composing music for young people that allows them a vibrant experience of their own creative energy. A powerful experience of this sort stays in the heart and mind as a channel for creative energy, no matter what the life path. Music shared in community brings this vital force to everyone. Illumination is an open and cheerful piece in a quick tempo, with a very direct A-B-A song form.
Illumination: Overture for Band was composed for the Franklin, Massachusetts', public schools. The commission was started by Nicole Wright, band director at the Horace Mann Middle School in Franklin, when she discovered that my grandnephew was in her band. The piece was initially to have been for her young players, but the idea grew to make it the center of the dedication concert at the opening of Franklin’s new high school building. Rehearsals of Illumination were actually the first musical sounds made in their fine new auditorium.
-Program note by composer
Errata
Clarinet III, m.103: E (transposed) should be E-flat. (Part)
Instrumentation
For Wind Band
Performer
Utah Wind Symphony
Conducted by Scott A. Hagen
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