TUEBOR SUITE American Bandmasters Association 2024

www.andrewdavidperkins.com

TUEBOR SUITE, winner of the 2023Sousa ABA Ostwald Award, performed by the Joint Armed Forces Band at the 2024 American Bandmasters Association convention, under the direction of Dr. Linda R. Moorehouse.

I. The Promised Land
II. Siren Songs
III. Timber!

Program Note:

The official Flag, Coat of Arms, and Great Seal of the state of Michigan were designed by Lewis Cass, Michigan's second territorial governor. The iconography was patterned after the seal of the Hudson Bay Fur Company and was adopted in 1835. In the center, the Latin "TUEBOR," meaning, "I will defend," refers to Michigan's frontier position, surrounded by the Great Lakes on every coast, and bordering Canada to the north and east.
In 1938, a young folk music collector named Alan Lomax came from Washington, DC to record Michigan’s folk music traditions for the Archive of American Folk-Song at the Library of Congress. Lomax was particularly interested in the trove of ballads remembered by aging lumberjacks and Great Lakes sailors. In ten weeks, he recorded more than 120 performers from Detroit to the western Upper Peninsula, many of them immigrants who brought their rich musical heritage with them from France, Ireland, Romania, Poland, and the Middle East. These recordings, along with the 1950’s recordings of Duane Starcher (recorded for WMUK Radio at Western Michigan University) were rich source material for this project. TUEBOR is a multi-movement suite honoring the agricultural, maritime and lumbering history of the state, incorporating the melodies of numerous Michigan folk-tunes in the tradition of Grainger, Holst, Vaughan Williams, and Copland.
Movement 1. “THE PROMISED LAND” is a march based on the melodies of “Michigan-I-A,” and several versions of “Michigan-I-O.” The lyrics of these tunes contain many appeals to Yankee farmers and laborers to come to Michigan and settle or work. Many promises are made by the singer, ensuring that with hard work, everything put in the ground would grow like “Jack’s bean.” Fortunes are waiting to be made in the logging camps of Michigan’s dense forests by the strong, brave souls who venture far from “ma & pop.”
Movement 2. “SIREN SONGS” is a ballad that incorporates the melodies of “The Bigler,” “The Clifton’s Crew,” and “The Gallagher Boys.” Shipping was a keystone of the state’s economy, and many sailors risked and lost their lives bringing goods from the Midwest across Lake Michigan, Lake Superior, Lake Huron, Lake Erie, and Lake Ontario. The Great Lakes are the largest freshwater bodies on the earth, and due to their sea-like characteristics (rolling waves, sustained winds, strong currents, great depths, and distant horizons) they have long been referred to as inland seas.
Movement 3. “TIMBER!” honors the men who made their living in lumber camps, drawing on material from “One More A- Lumb’ring Go” and “The Logger’s Alphabet.” Since the 1860's, Michigan was synonymous with pine lumbering, a dangerous and lucrative business. A vast belt of white pine grew across the Lower Peninsula and parts of the Upper Peninsula — towering cathedrals of timber that could grow as tall as 175 feet, with stumps 8 feet in diameter. In addition, Michigan was blessed with a network of rivers and creeks to transport the timbered logs to mills.
Folk song suites are a staple of the wind band repertoire and many of the iconoclastic works for the medium are adaptations of these cherished melodies. Passed down through generations via oral tradition, and often sung accompanied by guitar, banjo or melodeon, folk songs are rich sources of material that paint pictures and tell stories of bygone eras. They help us understand what life was like for our ancestors, their traditions and values, their trials and successes, their hopes and dreams.

Видео TUEBOR SUITE American Bandmasters Association 2024 канала Andrew David Perkins