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Format

The Paper format provides a high-quality printed score, perfect for building your physical music library and practicing away from screens.

The eScore is a high-quality digital sheet music file, available for download as a PDF across our entire catalog.

The eScore Extra lets you print the copies needed for your students or for the members of your ensemble, while strictly prohibiting digital sharing.

The Combo offers you the printed score and digital score at a discounted price, combining a physical library with instant access on your devices.

The Combo eScore Extra + Paper provides the printed score along with a digital version that allows you to print the copies you need for your students or ensemble.

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Description

Flute
Oboe (doubling Cor Anglais)
Clarinet in Bb (doubling Bass Clarinet)
Soprano Saxophone (doubling Tenor Saxophone)
Alto Saxophone (doubling Tenor Saxophone) 
Bassoon (doubling Contrabassoon) 
2 Horns in F Trumpet in C Bass Trombone 
Timpani 
Percussion (2 players)
Solo Guitar 
Double Bass

List of percussion instruments: Triangle, Suspended Cymbal, Temple Blocks, Glockenspiel, Xylophone, Marimba, Vibraphone, Bass Drum, Congas, Whip (Slapstick), Tam-Tam

 

The impetus behind A Concerto of Colours is the vivid, resonant landscape of the American South West. There are five short, highly contrasting, movements. Albuquerque Turquoise attempts to evoke the wide-open skies and the dazzling bright light of New Mexico. The Zuni and peoples of the Rio Grande pueblos associated blue turquoise with Father Sky and green turquoise with Mother Earth. Clyfford Still’s monolithic black paintings made a profound impression on me when I first saw them in Denver. The bleak canvases are sometimes broken up by small areas of intense colour – it is this contrast that I wanted to reflect in Still Black. There are other references here too – Mark Bradford’s politically charged artwork inspired by Still and the opening pages of Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood. Green Movement celebrates the beauty, but also reminds us of the fragility, of the South- Western terrain. The title Nocturne in Blue and Gold is taken from a painting by Whistler, but this section of the concerto also alludes to the Blues and to the American Gold Rush. The distant trumpet line suggests Miles Davis. The finale, Red Rocks, is named after the concert venue in Colorado located in a spectacular natural setting. The musical material is based on fragments borrowed from King Crimson’s album Red. A Concerto of Colours celebrates contrasts and contradictions

Movements

A Concerto of Colours: 1. Albuquerque Turquoise
A Concerto of Colours: 2. Still Black
A Concerto of Colours: 3. Green Movement
A Concerto of Colours: 4. Nocturene in Blue and Gold
A Concerto of Colours: 5. Red Rocks

Video excerpt(s)