Swan Lake Swing
In the spring of 2005 I was commissioned by Eun Lee to arrange
Swan Lake as a suite of big band pieces for a benefit concert she
was holding for WBGO radio to complete her senior project at
Northern Valley High School at Demarest. I arranged six of the
movements from the ballet, rehearsed them with an enthusiastic
ad-hoc bigband consisting of middle school, high school and
college students, then conducted them at the concert. While I feel
that the music was a little under-rehearsed (half an hour of
unfamiliar bigband music done in a handful of rehearsals), I fell we
caught the spirit of what I was trying to go for. This was definitely a
learning experience and I am very thankful to be given this
opportunity to write my first bigband charts, rehearse my first big
band, and my first opportunity to conduct.
Here are two movements:
Sing Song, Swing Swan
Hungry's Dance