American Carillon Music Editions
The 2014 American Carillon Music Editions new collection is now ready for purchase. This collection comprises 19 pieces of music (167 pages), and provides a balanced offering of original compositions, arrangements, and duets, which we believe reflect the diversity of our customer’s carillon music preferences. The 2014 collection includes prize winning music as well as music that will premier during the 2014 GCNA Congress. We think you will find the music not only fun to play, but very useful when planning concerts for the upcoming year. Click here to purchase the 2014 collection and obtain an additional 10% discount on all orders purchased in 2014. Original Compositions We are pleased to offer several pieces recently composed by one of our favorite composers, John Knox: *Three Octotones for the Mile High City, composed for the 2014 GCNA Denver congress, Rondo Gioviale “the jolly rondo”, La chasse Mysterieuse “The mysterious hunt”, and Uluru Sketches, a multi-movement work inspired by “Uluru”, a massive sandstone rock formation located on the plains of Central Australia. We jumped on the opportunity to republish one of John’s greatest compositions, A Dance to the Music of Time, commissioned in 2002 for performance during the GCNA congress at the University of Michigan. John was inspired by the painting “Il Ballo Della Vita Humana” painted by Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665). We are excited to offer the two winning compositions of the Perpignan Sacred Music Festival 2014 carillon composition competition: Mitchell Stecker’s Spiraculum Vitae, “Breath of Life” won first prize and Pete Olejar’s et inspiravit won the 2nd prize. Both pieces focus on “le souffle” (breath), the theme for the festival. We are offering two more original compositions composed by Pete Olejar: The Bells, inspired by the Edgar Allan Poe poem, “The Bells” with its’ four contrasting movements, Silver Bells, Golden Bells, Brazen Bells, and Iron Bells, and *Denver Musings, a multi-movement work inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s story “Eleonora”. See if you can pick out “Hail to Denver U.” in the 2nd movement. To round out our collection of original compositions, we’ve included the dreamy Moonlight on a Snowy Field, by Doug Gefvert and Carlo van Ulft’s Carillon Rap, a very rhythmic piece (without any spoken lyrics). Arrangements When creating a concert program with the “audience in mind”, include at least one piece that is either familiar or that can easily capture the attention of the listener. Karel Keldermans has provided an arrangement of Vivaldi’s Violin Concerto in A Minor, one of twelve concertos from “L’Estro Armonico” thought to be perhaps the most influential collection of instrumental music to appear during the 18th century. Pete Olejar’s arrangement of Lemmens’ fast and furious Fanfare will capture the attention of all the organ lovers in your audience, and Carlo van Ulft’s arrangement of two well-known arias from Verdi’s Rigoletto, “La Donna é Mobile and Caro Nome” will appeal to even the most ardent operaphobe. These two arias can be played as two separate pieces or as a medley. Collections No carillon library should be without something fun. Linda Dzuris’s collection of Yiddish Theater Music (The Rabi bids us be joyful, Beware of the devil's power, Lullaby, and My Wife Came with Me) is not only quite fun, but also a bit quirky. The storylines and music in this collection addressed many topics of concern for the new immigrants from Romania. Carlo van Ulft has not only provided a collection of Lullabies for Carillon, three lullabies (wiegenlied) written by Mozart, Brahms, and Schubert, but also a collection of three of the greatest John Denver songs, *Three John Denver Songs, including Fly Away, Sunshine on my Shoulders, and Take Me Home, Country Roads. Duets John Knox’s duet arrangement of Handel’s *Concerto Grosso Op.6 No.1 includes five contrasting movements: 1 – dramatic, solemn and majestic; 2 – lively allegro, 3 – dignified adagio, 4 – fugal movement, and 5 – energetic gigue. Finally, we are offering a collection of crowd-pleasing duets arranged by Elizabeth Vitu (Duets for Carillon, Volume 2) including Pizzicati from Léo Delibes’ ballet “Sylvia”, Barcarolle from Jacques Offenbach’s opera “Tales of Hoffmann” and Offenbach’s The Infernal Galop also known as Can-Can. These duets are easy to put together and lots of fun to play. The danger is that your audience might be moved to form a chorus-line and dance along with the high energy music. ___________________ *Piece was created for the 2014 GCNA Denver Congress Sue Bergren - Music EditorMark Bergren - Publications Editor