Farmington Fanfare

Farmington Fanfare is work that was commissioned by the Director of Bands at Farmington Junior High School, Heath Wolf. Farmington is a small community about twenty minutes north of Salt Lake City. The task was to create a three minute work written specifically for his students in his advanced band. This work would be premiered at the 2009 MENC Convention. The fanfare opens very briskly and almost immediately taken over by flashy clarinet parts with the melody occurring only in the Flute and the Bells. In fact, the melodic line when it occurs is almost secondary in its simplistic design to the moving lines in the rest of the ensemble. Another part of the challenge was to right music that every student would have something special to learn. The middle section has a variety of motifs with great interjections from various sections all happening to the groove of a hi-hat. And the frequent time signature change will definitely keep the players on the edge of their seats. Moving toward the ending, a restatement of the opening theme accompanied by woodwind flourishes. Percussion parts for the are quite abundant as the Farmington Junior High School under Mr. Wolf's direction has an award winning and nationally recognized Percussion Ensemble. A Percussion Section with fewer than seven percussionists would find it a challenge to cover all of the parts. Farmington Fanfare is a piece that is sure to challenge musicians even at the high school level. However, excitement will be the word when players describe the experience of performing this work.