Brandon Nelson

IMAGO DEI

Category: Compositions

  • Hot as fire! (sax trio)

    A brilliant way to open or close your next recital!  Impressive, gutsy gestures (well within the reach of good high school players) and an in-your-face style will leave your audience jumping to its feet! Based on a highly-descriptive poem written by the composer’s son (included in the program notes), you won’t want to miss programming…

  • solid, liquid, gas, plasma (tenor sax, bass clarinet, harp)

    A unique, vivacious exploration of the states of matter in this virtuosic showpiece for chamber ensemble! Get the music here!

  • Toccata di Ferro (mixed chamber ensemble)

    Written for the rather unique assemblage of performers known as the Timekeepers Quintet (bassoon, tenor sax, trumpet, bass trumpet, and tuba), this piece with numerous contrasting sections is a musical tribute to the iron range (northern Michigan) upon which I live.

  • The Four Horsemen (solo sax)

    Dr. Brian Kauth assembled a consortium of saxophone players to commission me to write a piece in fourmovements, each to be for a different member of the saxophone family (soprano, alto, tenor, baritone). Hechose the theme of the “four horsemen of the apocalypse” because, as he puts it, “the saxophone was longconsidered ‘the devil’s instrument’…

  • Look Down Fair Moon (SATB Choir with Piano)

    A chilling, moving portrayal of the Walt Whitman poem depicting the aftermath of a bloody Civil War battle. Contemporary techniques combine with traditional resources to make for an unforgettable musical experience. Look down, fair moon and bathe this scene, Pour softly down night’s nimbus floods, on faces ghastly, swollen, purple; On the dead, on their…

  • Heart of Kings (Concert Band)

    For those who go unsung, those everyday saints with souls of nobility and charity who go out and build a better world, without expectation of reward or recognition.

  • lights, flitting and waning (woodwind Trio)

    A unique chamber showpiece in which each player gradually changes instruments. Fun to listen to, watch, and play! Get the music here!

  • Poème (woodwind quintet)

    A petite morsel portraying both a simple pathos and a burst of energy. Get the music here!

  • Snow, falling (flute, clarinet, alto sax)

    Snow, gently falling…then blown about by a sudden gust. Melting, in the glare of the sun… Get the music here!

  • Regarding Stéphane Mallarmé (Alto Flute Trio)

    Stéphane Mallarmé was a French poet active in the late 19th century. His work, highly unusual for the time, was inspiration for Debussy and Schoenberg. The reader grapples with great metaphysical questions, existential doubt, strangeness, and uncertainty;with rhythms of fragmentation and silence; dislocated syntax; the rapid formation, transmutation, andevaporation of images; and thoughts that seem…