For Those Who Fell:

A War Memorial for Concert Band

Composed 1990; severely re-written Dec. 28 2014--Feb. 8, 2015

Duration: about 7 minutes 20 seconds
cover photo: Nomandy cemetary, photographed by Murray Isbister

              In 1989, I had the pleasure of visiting with an old friend I met at NTSU in the '70s, Fred Robinson (no relation), when the Air Force Band he composed and arranged for played at Brevard, NC. As a result of this visit, when I returned home to Cleveland NC, I wrote a series of pieces for his musicians. One of these was a work for jazz band, For Those Who Fell, a short (four minutes) war memorial. However, shortly after the band got the piece, the Gulf War started, and the Pentagon sent out the word that there should be no reminders that people die in war. Hoo-rah. None of my music was used.
          In the 2000’s, I tried finding a jazz band that would play the piece, but there were many barriers; it is not in a jazz idiom, there was  no improvisation or any percussion, and it is far removed from whatever it might be programmed with in any normal jazz concert. In addition, most professional jazz bands expected me to pay for performance. Thus the little piece sat unused in my files with all the others.
          In late 2014 I figured that FTWF would work well for concert band, especially expanded in length. I inserted about three minutes of new music into the center, and completely re-orchestrated and expanded the rest to suit the new instrumentation.
         Given the sorry state of humanity throughout all of history, there should be no end of opportunities to find suitable moments for performance.