Michael Mitchell

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Riding in Coach
for Wind Quintet
Duration: ~4 minutes | Difficulty: Advanced 

All aboard for a cinematic soundscape through the heart of the American West. Riding in Coach is a reflective, multi-movement work for wind quintet that captures the quiet magic and grandeur of a train ride from Salt Lake City to Chicago. Inspired by the sweeping views and still moments of travel through the Rocky Mountains, this piece offers performers and audiences a rich, atmospheric journey.

Movements:
	1.	Burlington Route  Evokes the rhythmic momentum of the train as it pulls away from the platform and begins its eastward journey, with pulsing motives and layered textures reminiscent of wheels on rails.
	2.	Power Lines  A fragmented yet flowing soundscape, mirroring the image of broken and continuous power lines strung between poles. Musical phrases stretch and snap like wires between supportssometimes taut, sometimes loosesuggesting both connection and distance.
	3.	Mountain Vistas  The most expansive movement, blending soaring lines and colorful harmonies to reflect the awe-inspiring landscapes of the Rockies.

With its cinematic flair and tight structure, Riding in Coach is ideal for recital programs seeking a fresh narrative pieceshort in duration but rich in character. Designed for advanced ensembles, it offers opportunities for nuanced expression, ensemble cohesion, and emotional depth.

Riding in Coach

Woodwind Quintet

Format

This programmatic piece is about the moving of American Falls, Idaho
when a dam was built in 1925. To this day the Oneida grain elevator can
be seen standing out in the reservoir. When water levels drop enough
the old town site is revealed and old sidewalks and foundations can be
seen. Buildings that could be moved were lifted up onto flat cars and
pulled by steam tractors. After that the old main street buildings were
demolished. This piece depicts the sound of the tractors gearing up to
move and the subsequent march to higher ground with the buildings in
tow. The sound of the steam tractors permeates the piece in the snare
drum and the hiss of steam from the band members. The second section
is an excerpt from John Phillip Sousa's and the American Falls High
School fight song Stars and Stripes Forever. The move was a big part of
this small town's history and this piece is dedicated to the small Idaho
town with a big heart.

The Big A.F. March

Concert Band Score & Parts

Instrument Type

This is a very personal piece of grief, loss, and the road to recovering from the loss
of a loved one. It took me a year to decide to write this piece and another year and
a half to complete. It features moments of pain and grief written in my own style,
separated by sections of Take Me Out to the Ball Game. My father was an avid fan
and player of baseball. When I started writing this piece I wanted to include not
only the hard moments, but the moments that also brought me joy. I have lots of
memories watching my father play baseball and softball. I also remember going to
plenty of games with my father, cheering on our local team, eating hot dogs and pizza,
and hoping to catch a foul ball. The song Take Me Out to the Ball Game brings
back those memories of all the wonderful things I got to experience with my dad
and gives me hope as I share those experiences with my own children. I dedicate
this piece to the memory of my father.

Daily Reminders

Horn in F Quartet

This string quartet is a gentle and serene sounding piece. It is simple
  and sonorous. Great for those beginning in chamber music.

String Quartet No. 1

String Quartet

Rain is a calm and playful piano duet for four hands, capturing the gentle patter of raindrops as they tap across rooftops, leaves, and windowsills. Written in a modal language and approximately one minute in length, this evenly-leveled duet offers a refreshing musical moment for intermediate pianists. Perfect for students or friends looking to enjoy a lighthearted, imaginative piece together, Rain is a short, satisfying addition to any digital piano collection.

Available as a digital download  ideal for recreational playing or as a quick duet in lessons or casual performances.

Rain

Piano Duet-1 Piano, 4 Hands

This wind quintet features a programmatic story of young people walking
  through the woods and coming upon a circus. The music is simple enough for
  beginning chamber musicians and is a joy to perform.

Woodwind Quintet No. 1

Haunted Circus
for French Horn and Organ
by Michael Paul Mitchell
Duration: 9'23" | Level: Advanced
Format: Score and Parts (Digital &amp; Print)
Step right upinto the shadows. Haunted Circus is a gripping three-movement work for solo French horn
and organ that blends theatrical flair with dark, cinematic sonorities. Composed in a distinctly 21st-century
idiom, this piece is ideal for recital performance and Halloween-themed concerts, offering a thrilling showcase
for advanced players.
Program Notes
Haunted Circus invites performers and audiences into a surreal world where spectacle meets the supernatural.
Each movement conjures a distinct act in this eerie circus tale:
1. Grand Entrance  With the organ mimicking the grandeur of a bygone carnival and the horn soaring
above like a sinister ringmaster's call, the opening movement sets the stage with both bravado and an undercurrent
of dread.
2. The Lights Go Out  A brief but intense movement filled with uncertainty and suspense. Here, silence
and shadow take the spotlight, and the interplay between instruments becomes more fragmented and
ghostly.
3. Descent  The finale plunges deep into the macabre. Dissonant harmonies, sweeping textures, and
the inevitable descent into the Haunted Circus. A feeling of being reluctantly dragged ever downward.
Both technically and interpretively demanding, Haunted Circus is a captivating narrative for seasoned horn
players looking to explore a unique blend of drama and atmosphere with the rich, often-overlooked pairing of
horn and organ.

Haunted Circus

Horn in F Solo with Organ

This programmatic piece is based on Edgar Allen Poeis short story The
  Masque of the Red Death. It features a group of aristocrats who have locked
  themselves up in a castle to ward off the Red Death. After several months of
  seclusion the Prince decides to have a party. They lavishly decorate the
  seven suites, each in a different color. The seventh room was decorated black
  and dominated by a very ominous clock. The attendees freely moved about 6 of
  the rooms but steered clear of the clock. As the party goes on the clocks
  chimes grow louder and louder as though time itself is marching through the
  suites. Eventually it becomes clear they are not safe from the Red Death and
  clocks chimes begin to sound out their demise. The music is in a variety of
  styles, always with an undertone of the approaching Red Death. They dance and
  have fun but always something seems to be amiss about their gathering. Soon
  the horns sound the chimes of the clock and eventually the attendees realize
  that they cannot escape the Red Death.

The Masque of the Red Death

Brass Octet

Fanfare for the Pale Blue Dot is a bold, energetic work for brass quintet inspired by the iconic Voyager 1 photograph of Earth taken from nearly six billion kilometers away. From that immense distance, our planet appears as a fragile point of light—small, yet immeasurably significant.

Driven by fast rhythmic figures and a powerful, expansive brass sonority, the piece opens with a sense of confidence and motion, suggesting humanity’s technological reach and curiosity. As the work unfolds, shifting textures and challenging harmonic colors introduce moments of reflection, hinting at the vulnerability and shared humanity embodied in that distant image. The fanfare style remains present throughout, but it is reframed not as a celebration of dominance, rather as a call to awareness and perspective.

Approximately two minutes in length, this Grade 5 composition demands precision, rhythmic clarity, and mature ensemble balance. Fanfare for the Pale Blue Dot offers advanced brass ensembles a compact yet impactful musical statement—one that invites performers and listeners alike to consider Earth’s place in the vastness of the cosmos.

Fanfare for the Pale Blue Dot

Brass Quintet

Upper Stillwater Dam is a grade 2 piece about a dam located in the high
  Uintas of Duchesne County, Utah. As one hikes up the road towards the dam it
  appears to rise out of the trees until its full width can be viewed. It is an
  awe inspiring sight and is somewhat of an engineering wonder being the
  longest roller-compacted gravity concrete dam in North America. At times
  during Spring it creates a 600 ft. wide 200 ft. tall waterfall that spills
  over and down the stepped spillway. The dam's construction was notable among
  residents of the area and is still talked about by many to this day. There is
  a campground nearby and lots of wildlife and be especially careful of the
  bears! The music tries to depict the grand wonder of the dam and capture some
  of the surrounding sights and sounds as well.

Upper Stillwater Dam

Perilous Times is a grade 3 piece that explores going through times of
  peril or trial and the ultimate rewards one can gain from persevering through
  such trials. While being written in an atonal manner, in which all
  accidentals are given for the instruments, the harmonies are still mostly
  pleasant and this piece can be a good entry into music that doesn't focus
  around a specific key center. This was commissioned by Davidson High School
  in Mobile, Alabama.

Perilous Times

This is based on the piano piece by Burgmueller. It is a great piece for
  young brass players learning to play chamber music. It features some
  contrapuntal lines, easy harmonies, and nice melodic figures.

Arabesque

Brass Sextet

This piece for solo horn was written for a composer's recital during my undergrad. This was a response to a piece I had performed the previous year that went terribly awry. It grapples with my feelings of embarassment and shock at the way the piece was started. In hindsight it was not a big deal that the piece did not go as planned and the performers were able to recover. Perhaps the ending and some of the nicer parts of this Fantasy are a representation of the performers's ability to recover under pressure.

Fantasy

Horn in F Solo Unaccompanied

Theme for Oboe is a bold and virtuosic unaccompanied work for advanced performers, lasting approximately 3 minutes and 45 seconds. Atonal in language yet rich in character, the piece blends dramatic tension with playful energy, demanding a full command of the instrument's expressive and technical range.

Written with wide leaps, rapid passages, and a broad dynamic palette, this piece offers both a challenge and a showcase for the mature oboist. With its modern idiom and theatrical flair, Theme for Oboe is ideal for recital programs, juries, and professional-level performances.

Theme for Oboe

Oboe Solo Unaccompanied

Interjectory is an episodic piece built on the octatonic scale and a triad that contains both the major and minor third providing a juxtaposition of consonance and dissonance at the same moment.  The middle of the piece contrasts the opening with a more lyrical cello and an upset ostinato in the piano that then brings us back to the material from the beginning.

Interjectory

Cello Solo with Piano

The consequences of this piece are heard by the dissonances created
  harmonically and rhythmically. The 6 players seem to start off together but
  quickly disagree, all going in different directions at different speeds. At
  some point they meet up and are finally on the same page. Lots of tuplets,
  tempo changes, and shifts in character are the main elements of this piece.

Dire Consequences

String Sextet

This piece is in three contrasting movements. The first uses odd meters
  and
    
    usually avoids emphasizing its meter and utilizes material that revolves
  around
    
    the tritone and half-step. The second movement is slower and is to be
  played as
    
    introspective and perhaps nostalgic. The third movement is to be played
  almost
    
    like a waltz, the bowings are indicated for the first instance of waltz
  like rhythm
    
    and the performer should interpret the other similar motives in the same
  way.

Three Pieces for Solo Violin

Violin Solo

This piece for solo flute is composed in a style that Ruth Crawford used in her Diaphonic Suite for Flute and her String Quartet. The use of rotations make the structure of the piece with a contrasting middle section.

Homage to Ruth Crawford-Seeger

Flute Solo

Voice

Songs of Sleep
for Soprano and Piano | 4 Movements | Duration: 5'23"

A poignant and imaginative song cycle exploring the many shades of slumber, Songs of Sleep invites performers and audiences alike into a dreamscape where lullabies blend with deeper meditations on mortality.

This contemporary classical work for soprano and piano features four short movements, each set to evocative texts in the public domain. The cycle opens with an a cappella setting of John McCrae's "Slumber Song I", immediately establishing an intimate, introspective tone. A second McCrae text follows in "Slumber Song II," supported by rich, advanced harmonies that subtly unsettle and soothe in equal measure. Eugene Field's "An Invitation to Sleep" brings a touch of whimsical serenity, while Christian Carstairs' "A Dream" closes the cycle with layered rhythms and harmonies that blur the line between lullaby and elegy.

Ideal for collegiate and professional-level sopranos, this set is well-suited for recital programmingparticularly themed concerts focusing on night, dreams, or poetic reflections on childhood and mortality.

Songs of Sleep

Soprano Solo

This piece begins with stacked chords whose pitches then are used in a linear
fashion. A broad melody gets started but is always interrupted by highly
contrapuntal and staccato passages that still borrow from the main melody.
Later stacked chords come back as a means of punctuation but they are more
closely stacked to provide harmonic tension and contrast. The second
movement is built upon a minor third motive introduced by the cello and is
played with throughout the movement with an interplay between the three
voices sounding like a dialogue and dance. The third movement comes in fast
and somewhat furious with more biting dissonances releasing to a consonant
end.

Piano Trio No. 1

Piano Trio- Violin, Cello, Piano Trio

Global Sections - CORE [DO NOT TOUCH]*

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