Composers Datebook

In the rarified world of contemporary music, composers are expected to “challenge” performers—to push the envelope of instrumental technique and difficulty. But in the fall of 1999, it was the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Michael Colgrass himself who was challenged: He was commissioned by the American Composers Forum to write a piece for their BandQuest series, intended to provide high-quality new music for young performers. Specifically, Colgrass was asked to write for the Winona Drive Senior School Band of Toronto. Far from professional musicians, some of these were kids just learning to play their instruments. Their conductor—no jet-setting superstar—was the hard-working Louis Papachristos, who, in addition to leading 3 bands, also coached boy’s and girls’ basketball. Colgrass rose to the challenge, and the resulting work, “Old Churches,” was premiered on this date in 2000. Colgrass employed elements of Gregorian chant to evoke an ancient monastery, and easy graphic notation to introduce students to improvisation and involve them in the compositional process itself. “Keeping the music simple was a challenge,” says Colgrass, “but it struck me that Mozart and Beethoven wrote music for amateurs without ‘dumbing down’… am I a good enough composer to write a simple theme that can be genuinely exciting or moving, the way they did?” As a result of the experience, Colgrass suggests that writing for middle school bands should be a required project in university composition programs—as training for composers. “Writing for eighth grade band is like walking in four-pound shoes, says Colgrass, “if you can move gracefully with that weight on your feet, you'll fly when you put on the four-ounce runners.”