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On the Shoulders of Giants: A Concerto for Brass and Percussion

On the Shoulders of Giants was commissioned by The Cory Band and The National Youth Brass Band of Wales with support from Ty Cerdd – Music Centre Wales. The work is virtuosic by design, being primarily intended as a display piece for the Cory Band to perform in defence of their European Brass Band Champions title at the 2009 competition in Ostende, Belgium. The work has subsequently been performed at the Australian, Danish, English, French, New Zealand, North American, Norwegian, Swiss and Swedish National Brass Band Championships.

As a brass band test-piece virtuosity is central to the work, and the composition builds upon Peter Dickinson’s notion of style modulation to explore the layering of popular and classical styles within a single work. Here the term “style modulation” can be applied to the new performance practices demanded by the modern brass band. The expectation is that high-level performers in these particular ensemble types are developing the ability to adjust and adapt according to the style of music presented. The specific character and sound of the brass band (as distinct from the orchestral brass ensemble for example) is largely determined by particular instruments (for example euphoniums) and so it has been necessary to re-examine traditional scoring techniques with a view to exploring in the brass band context what might be considered unorthodox approaches to particular technical problems.

Indicative of the international level of interest in this idea of performance style modulation is the announcement that the theme of the work has recently been the subject of a full concert by The Brass Band of Battle Creek, one of only two professional brass bands in the US whose players are drawn from the highest levels of orchestral, jazz and popular performance practice.