Trenton Rhodes Music

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Allow your talented high school students to broaden their horizons and take a peek at what is possible with their instruments. An engaging work at the peak of its difficulty level, it explores all sorts of tonalities and harmonic structures; the fast tempo combined with different technical passages and extreme ranges forces students to engage with the music and expand their abilities. The middle section allows for creative expressivity as well as a place for a quick rest before the fire returns to end the work.

Brave Fire

Concert Band Score & Parts

An excellent piece for reduced instrumentation at a medium level. A singular melody presented in the beginning is taken to completely different places and tonalities throughout the work. The melody rises and falls in ways that resemble mountainous terrain far in the distance, which is the origin of the title. Winner of the 2025 Association of Concert Bands and John Philip Sousa Foundation Composition Contest.

Symphonic Mountain Fantasy

This piece focuses on three central holiday classics – Hark, the Herald Angels Sing; Jingle Bells and Joy to the World – but there are a few hidden references to other Christmas tunes as well, so listen closely! The work opens triumphantly with a fanfare-like medley of the three tunes and then morphs into arrangements of each of them. With a fairly flexible instrumentation and a moderate difficulty level, this will work for a wide range of ensembles. A great piece to have for your holiday festivities!

Hark the Bells to the World

When I was a freshman in college, I often found that my works did not focus on developing the melodic
material, but rather simply repeated the melodic phrase over and over again with a few minor changes. I
decided that to remedy this problem, I would write a work that was solely focused on development of the
main melody. However, as the piece progressed the overall structure began to change, and therefore the main
goal of the piece changed. My main focus shifted from simple developments to a more complicated
programmatic story, where the main melody is put to the test in many different ways.
When listening to this work or preparing it for a performance, don't just focus purely on how the melodic
material is used. Instead, try and picture the story that the music is telling  that story is completely up to the
listener. The title, Contrary for Entreaty is somewhat inspired from the story that I myself see (a conflict
between the melody and what the melody "should" be), but everyone will view it in different ways. Encourage
your students to picture their own stories when listening, so that they better understand the music, can
hopefully relate to it, and will hopefully be more enthusiastic with working towards a high quality
performance.
- Trenton Rhodes, 2024

Contrary for Entreaty

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This is a weird, quirky little piece that I wrote in the summer of 2019, as one of many pieces to explore the idea of writing for stringed instruments in general. Prepare for some contemporary-like harmonies and a few extended techniques, and for incredibly short musical phrases reminiscent of Webern. The interpretation of the work is completely up to the listener – whatever you hear, that’s what the story is!
- Trenton Rhodes, 2026

The Short Mystery

Piano Trio- Violin, Cello, Piano Trio

In my sophomore year of high school, we had a joke where we would spell out random words with musical notes. Since my father was our band director at Booneville High School, I came up with D, A, D to create a "DAD" motif. After school I quickly rushed to my computer to try and develop this small idea into a short band composition, and this piece is the result. As I am a trumpet player, I thought it would be best to write it in the Bb transposition, so the sounding pitches would be C, G, C at first. However, throughout the piece the key does switch to D, having all instruments play the correct sounding pitches at various points. This is a quirky, fun and goofy little piece that I know your band students will enjoy!
- Trenton Rhodes, 2025

This piece for a slightly reduced band instrumentation is inspired from the slow process of slowly accepting and moving on from the loss of someone incredibly special in your life, whether they be a family member, friend, partner, etc. With the musical content inspired from lyrical works of Whitacre and Ticheli, the piece starts in a very somber setting. Slowly a melody starts forming, which becomes the primary melodic material of the piece. Gradually the melody is developed, and is brought to different places as it builds and builds to a peak, where the loss is felt at its extreme but the overwhelming acceptance starts to take hold. At the end, the feeling present isn’t happiness or excitement; it is relief, and true acceptance.
- Trenton Rhodes, 2025

Quiet Reverie

It is my freshman year of high school. I had started to submit pieces I had written into composition contests, with very little positive feedback. Determined, I set out to compose as "good" of a concert band work as I could, with the tools in my arsenal at the time. My goal with this work was to write in a very standard form (ABA), incorporate two musically sound melodies, and to make the work succeed in as many ways as I could. The title, The Journey, could be seen as a representation of my journey through becoming a composer, as with this piece I feel that my compositional abilities matured a little more when compared to other pieces from around the same time.
- Trenton Rhodes, 2025

The Journey

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Samuel Taylor-Coleridge wrote a poem that is only four lines long, but has had an extremely profound impact on my life. In Desire, Coleridge compares true love to flames, that swell up. He says that these feelings are natural, our "earthly frame". He also says that it is the truest reflection of our intentions and our emotions, the "language of the heart". I've known and studied this poem for several years, since my high school days. The poem is so short, likely one of the shortest collection of words that has been published as a serious work of art. But nevertheless, the meaning is incredibly powerful.
	I originally put this poem along with a collection of poems that I was setting to try to piece together a story of heartbreak in high school. This project never came to fruition, however the way I set this text stayed with me. A few years later I decided to take some of my older sketches and try to piece together something that I felt portrayed the complexity and the raw emotional content of the poem. There are a lot of close intervals within musical lines; reminiscent of Whitacre choral writing techniques. This is done for multiple reasons, the primary one being to highlight a very deep aspect of this poem, something that it is named after: Desire. When we feel desire, it boils up inside of us like flames do, and one way to musically portray this is to use clashing harmonies that rise up to resolutions. This is central to the way I composed this piece. At the end, repeating "burns" serve as embers that fly out of the flames as the desire is quelled. We end on a beautifully resolved A major add 9 chord, which is the dominant in the tonal key center of D. The story isn't over, but the speaker's part is. The close interval is present here as well, which reminds us of the speaker's feelings.
	When performing this piece, know that a lot of emotional exposure will be necessary for the performers to convey the true meaning of the work. The students will need to remember that feeling of burning desire to know what this piece truly means.
- Program note by composer

Desire

SATB

Shortly following the composition of my first real piece of music The Light, I set out to write another concert band work with the potential goal of having it performed by the Booneville Advanced Band, the band I was in at the time (2017). This piece is the result  upon listening to the work, you will immediately notice that my compositional arsenal was far less diverse than it is today - the melody repeats several times without much development, the tonality is very clear and does not deviate from the tonal center, and the piece is without a form; that is, through-composed. The grade level of the work comes from the expanded ranges of the instruments, the maturity of maintaining an expressive and lyrical style, and some fast woodwind passages toward the end. While this work is vastly different from my compositional output today, I recognize it as a very early part of my long journey as a composer.

PERFORMANCE NOTE: This work comes with an electronic backing track to be played at the very beginning. This backing track is OPTIONAL, however highly suggested as it does enhance the performance. If you'd like to use the backing track, please contact me at trentonrhodesmusic@gmail.com and I will happily send it to you free of charge.
- Trenton Rhodes, 2025

Lost, then Found

This work is my first serious composition, written in 2017 when I was in 8th grade. My goal was to write a substantial band work that uses a very minimal instrumentation, with only 1 part per line with a few exceptions. The result is a very lyrical work that clearly showcases the compositional tools in my 14-year-old self's arsenal, with melodic, harmonic and orchestrational choices that bring to light a beautiful band sound that every director knows and loves!

This work was chosen as a finalist in the 2017 MakeMusic Young Composers Contest.
- Trenton Rhodes, 2025

The Light

In 2022, I wrote a work entitled “Obsidian Inferno” for Trombone Choir (now published under C Sharpe Editions). A year later, the piece was chosen as a winner of the 2023 University of Southern Mississippi’s Trombone Day Call for Scores and premiered at the event. Upon hearing this news, Dr. Zacharella immediately expressed interest in commissioning me to compose a trombone work of some sort. Fast forward to today, and this piece is the result of that commission.

The piece was written with the idea of creating an accessible trombone work suitable for collegiate-level players. It starts very dramatically with a large thunderous bang, and as the ensemble accompanies, the two solo trombones engage in a conversation-like figure that winds down to the first statement of the main theme, which will be developed throughout the course of the piece. As the two trombones play with and converse with both each other and the ensemble, the piece becomes stormier and more intense. Then after another restatement of the beginning material, we slowly come to the end of the storm, where calming major harmonies fill the hall and end the piece.

The piano reduction of this work would be completely suitable for a chamber recital, a duet feature to showcase your ability to musically converse with another player in a mature way to convey the storm of this piece. This version for wind ensemble is perfect for showing how you can balance your playing with an entire ensemble behind you to create something very dramatic, powerful, and musical.
- Trenton Rhodes, 2025

Dark Storm Impressions

Shakespeare's sonnets are some of the greatest love poems penned by humanity. The full series of 154 poems touch on a wide variety of subjects and are addressed to different people throughout. This poem, Sonnet 147, is speaking to The Dark Lady, which is the subject of sonnets 127-152. The Dark Lady is the speaker's fixation, his unrequired love. She is evil and cruel, but despite this he is still in love with her.
	In Sonnet 147, the speaker compares his love to an illness that he cannot cure, because his "physician" left him. As a result, he completely loses his sanity and starts thinking "as madmen's are". At the end, he concludes that she is truly evil, after he thought she was beautiful. The poem is heartbreaking, and the way Shakespeare conveys the speaker's dive into insanity is so detailed, as if he himself was the speaker at one point. Indeed, I'm sure we all have experiences with unrequited love that do not end well.
	Upon discovering this poem in 2022, I immediately related to the speaker. I knew that I needed to set this beautiful sonnet to music, and so I began. I originally wanted to submit this work into a competition geared specifically geared towards setting Shakespeare poetry to music, however the piece grew to be much more than what the competition was asking for. As I was setting the music, I came upon four different melodic phrases, which are presented in the unison choir at the start. The rest of the piece is a development of these four ideas. Sometimes the piece takes us to heavenly ethereal textures, and sometimes it completely nose-dives into chaos, following the text. I find this work to be one of my more heartbreaking and expressive pieces, that will require a lot of emotional maturity to present an effective, high-quality performance.
- Program note by composer

Sonnet 147

In my sophomore year of high school, I was asked to arrange the holiday classic Joy to the World for the Booneville bands to perform at their annual Christmas concert. However, there was one catch – there needed to be a large Horn solo for the star hornist of the Intermediate Band! This solo (cued in the trumpet as well) showcases the higher range of the instrument, which was the biggest strength of the player I was writing for. Enjoy this arrangement, and I hope you consider using this piece to showcase the talent of your amazing students!
- Trenton Rhodes, 2025

Joy to the World

The Flute New Music Consortium holds an annual composition contest with 3 different sections. For their 2021 contest, I submitted this piece for the Flute and Piano section. I wanted to try and write a piece that likely wouldn't be thought of for a Flute and Piano piece - the flute is widely considered a delicate instrument, and so I assumed most flute and piano pieces would be fairly light or delicate in nature. For this piece, I wanted to do something completely different and experiment with what the flute is capable of dynamically. The piece is in an ABAB structure, with the A sections being stormy and the B sections being calmer before the storm picks up again.
- Trenton Rhodes, 2026

Storm

Flute Solo with Piano

This piece was originally written as the second movement of what would’ve been my Piano Quartet No. 1, written in 2019. After looking through the other movements, I’ve decided only to offer this one as a separate work entirely. With very dark and dissonant harmonies, and at a very slow tempo (hence the title), this piece is certainly very heavy and powerful. It’s written in an ABA structure, with the A sections being a lot darker than the more hopeful sound of the B section. Upon hearing this back in 2019, my father remarked that it sounded to him like the grief of losing a beloved pet. Make of that what you will.
- Trenton Rhodes, 2026

Largo

Piano Quartet- Violin, Viola, Cello, Piano Quartet

NOTE: This version has a revised piano part that is at a more appropriate difficulty level to match the trumpet difficulty.

This piece holds a special place in my heart. Written toward the end of 2019 after some unfortunate events in my life, this work is a representation of my immediate reaction to these events – the lonely nights of solitude (hence the name), trying to understand why these things happened the way they did, and lashing out when the answer isn’t clear. Dreamy ignorance is at the forefront of the piece, making the key center very ambiguous. The mood shifts frequently, mirroring my wandering mind remembering the happiness of before. The final chord shows a glimmer of hope, of the belief that things will get better soon. And that hope was not misplaced.

I offer this piece mainly as a sign that life will not always be covered in darkness – that no matter how dark and lonely things may seem, that there will always be light at the end of the tunnel. Don’t give up. You’re better than that.

Solitude

Trumpet Solo with Piano

This piece holds a special place in my heart. Written toward the end of 2019 after some unfortunate events in my life, this work is a representation of my immediate reaction to these events – the lonely nights of solitude (hence the name), trying to understand why these things happened the way they did, and lashing out when the answer isn’t clear. Dreamy ignorance is at the forefront of the piece, making the key center very ambiguous. The mood shifts frequently, mirroring my wandering mind remembering the happiness of before. The final chord shows a glimmer of hope, of the belief that things will get better soon. And that hope was not misplaced.

I offer this piece mainly as a sign that life will not always be covered in darkness – that no matter how dark and lonely things may seem, that there will always be light at the end of the tunnel. Don’t give up. You’re better than that.

One day, a good friend of mine Christopher Rahn reached out to me letting me know he’s putting together a small wind ensemble made up of collegiate and professional musicians from the Tyler, TX area, and would like me to write a piece for the ensemble. I graciously accepted, and immediately began to conceive this work as a concert opener of some sort.

From the opening bars of the work, it is clear that the music is true to its name – very triumphant and heroic fanfares, soaring woodwinds, and very lush harmonies. The middle section provides a clear sense of catharsis, which only makes the ending that much more powerful. You may be able to recognize a little motif that I use, which vaguely represents William Tell! I hope you enjoy this triumphant fanfare!
Trenton Rhodes, 2025

Heroic Overture

Dream Land is a gorgeous poem by the 19th century poet Christina Rossetti. It speaks of a woman who is using sleep as a way to escape the turmoil and pain of her life, something that I'm sure many people can relate to. In attempting to sleep, the woman is seeking true peace and solace, before the day comes to sweep her away.
In my freshman year of college, this poem really stuck out to me. I'd never heard of Rossetti, and after reading and analyzing the poem I was so captivated by it. The very subject I felt was so musical that I wanted to bring the musical parts to life, which is where this piece started. At the time of writing this work, I just needed a quick piece to fulfill requirements for a composition contest, and so I decided to only set the first stanza.
This work is very peaceful and tranquil, to complement the text. Some rhythms and harmonic choices are a little ambiguous, to represent the dreamy atmosphere. The piece takes us on a quick journey from Eb major all the way to A major, a full tri-tone away, and it does so using harmonic choices that slowly pull you toward the modulation. The overall structure is foggy, and melodic statements are not very clear, to represent the dreamy, ignorant state of mind. The over-arching theme behind this work is dreamy sleep; something to think about when preparing or listening to it.

Dream Land

Global Sections - CORE [DO NOT TOUCH]*

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