Brandon Nelson
IMAGO DEI
Category: Compositions
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Commissioned by Dr. Philip Howie for the University of Cambridge Concert Band, Cambridge, UK. Bringing together and celebrating both the storied past and bright future of music at Cambridge, this piece was commissioned to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the founding of the University of Cambridge Concert Band. In researching the University for this piece,…
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Imagine the terrifying prospect of having your fate-indeed, the fate of the entire universe-decided by the fickle whims of seven gods! This was life for all those who dwelled in the ancient society of Sumeria! They Who Decide Fate paints the picture of what living with these gods might have been like for those pitiable…
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Commissioned to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Adophe Sax’s birth, each of the movements of this piece (beyond the expository prelude) presents miniature vignettes of music written in Belgium’s past as seen through the lens of Sax’s invention. It is, in that sense, an homage to not only the great musical minds that came before…
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This work is based on the book by the same title. In it, one Abraham of Wurzburg, an aspiring medieval mage and devout Jew, describes a tour that he made of points in Europe and the Middle East, searching for a mentor who would not turn out to be a charlatan (or worse). Abraham eventually…
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As both a composer and a nurse, I sometimes like to find ways to combine my passions for music and medicine. In this piece, I musically explore several of the significant heart rhythms encountered in patients. The primary motivic idea is a rhythmic phrase that is reshaped to reflect the idiosyncrasies of the heart rhythm…
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Get the music here!
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A gentle mountain snowfall…an icy midnight sojourn…the simple, quiet joy of first snow… I found the perfect voice for the feelings and scenes of winter I wanted to convey in the tiny verses known as haiku. I’ve always loved haiku. I admire the expressive power that the skilled poet can wring out of such bare…
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This work was written for the Gwinn Middle School 8th Grade Band in Gwinn, MI, which is very near to the former K.I. Sawyer Air Force Base. Operational from 1956 – 1995, K.I. Sawyer served as a fighter-interceptor defense and as a nuclear deterrent during the Cold War. This piece celebrates the vital role the…
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The richly-detailed, darkly-evocative atmosphere of Edgar Allan Poe’s classic poem Dreamland was the inspiration for this piece. Each section of the music (there are five, just as there are five stanzas in the poem) reflects my interpretation of moods or events in the poem. Listeners and performers alike are encouraged to read Poe’s work before…
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There’s no worse feeling for a composer than looking down at the blank page and getting an overwhelming feeling of “now what?” It’s in trying to conquer that feeling that this project came into being. Perhaps you’ve seen those little trays at convenience stores that say “Need a Penny? Take a Penny. Have a Penny?…
Brandon Nelson 