Suite No.3 for Wind Orchestra

aSuite No. 3a (originally titled aKorean Folksong Suite) was composed as a one-movement fantasy for the United States Air Force Band of the Pacific in 1985. I selected ten songs I felt could best be arranged for a Western music ensemble. The piece was successfully premiered in Seoul, Korea in 1986 to enthusiastic reception. It turns out however, the Korean audience was simply being polite since most of the folk songs, arranged in Western style was unrecognizable by most of the people. Only aMiryang Ariranga and the well know aAriranga (the unofficial anthem of Korea) seemed to elicit recognition. The aKorean Folksong Suitea sat on the shelf until 2017 when I decided to develop the one movement work into seven separate movements. The music retains the melodic unadorned content of the original Korean folk songs (at least to Western ears) while employing contemporary harmonic techniques designed to bring Eastern and Western musics together.