Austin Symphonic Band
“Your Friends & Neighbors”
October 25, 2026
PROGRAM NOTES
Lola Flores
Alfred Sadel and Terig Tucci, arr. Krance
“Lola Flores” is a paso doble composed by Argentinian composer/arranger/violinist Terig Tucci. Lola Flores was a popular Spanish dancer and singer in the 1940’s up to the 1990’s, and made over 30 films. There’s not much information on the composition of the piece, which has become popular largely because of this arrangement for concert band by John Krance. Venezuelan tenor Alfredo Sadel wrote the lyrics for it. One of the first recordings of the work, from about 1960, is as a vocal with Sadel singing and Tucci conducting. Here’s a link to that recording:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dFpbz1zZ9I&list=RD9dFpbz1zZ9I&start_radio=1
Terig Tucci was born in Buenos Aires in 1897. He immigrated to the US in the 1920’s and worked as a violinist in the NBC radio orchestra. He also contributed original works and arrangements, specializing in Latin American musical styles, especially tangos and paso dobles. He died in Buenos Aires in 1973.
Suite Louisiane
James Syler
Suite Louisiane is a five-movement setting of Louisiana folk songs. “Louisiana is uniquely rich in vernacular music,” Mr. Syler writes: “My goal was to display that richness in a symphonic suite that entertains and educates. The five songs I selected each have unique histories and rich musical characteristics that I was able to amplify and expand upon.”
This work was commissioned by a consortium of colleges and universities from the Louisiana chapter of the College Band Directors National Association (CBDNA) for the 2019 Louisiana Intercollegiate College Band.
The movements are:
I. Isabeau S’y Promene (French Canadian folk song)
II. Michieu Banjo (Afro-Creole folk song)
III. Aux Natchitoches (Louisiana French ballad)
IV. Now Shall My Inward Joys Arise (Shape-note hymn song)
V. Eunice Two-Step (Cajun accordion tune)
Selections from Oklahoma
Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, arr. Robert Russell Bennett, adapt. for concert band by R. Mark Rogers
Oklahoma was the first musical collaboration between composer Richard Rodgers and author/lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II. Both of them had had successful careers in musical theater since the 1920’s. Rodgers and lyricist Larry Hart had written several successful shows together — A Connecticut Yankee (1927), On Your Toes (1936) and Pal Joey (1940) among them. Hammerstein had written the book and lyrics to Show Boat (1927), the first great American musical, with music by Jerome Kern.
Oklahoma proved to be transformational. It integrated the story, based on the novel Green Grow the Lilacs, with songs and dance sequences into a new musical theater style. It ran for more than 2,000 performances on Broadway. The score was filled classic numbers like “Oh, What A Beautiful Morning,” “The Surrey With the Fringe on Top,” “Out of My Dreams” and “People Will Say We’re in Love.” It received a Pulitzer Prize in 1944. Rodgers and Hammerstein began an unparalleled streak of musicals that eventually included Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, and The Sound of Music.
Robert Russell Bennett was, by the time of his orchestrating the score to Oklahoma, the dean of American orchestrators for Broadway. He had previously scored Show Boat (1927) for Jerome Kern, Girl Crazy (1930) and Of Thee I Sing (1931) for the Gershwins, and Anything Goes (1934) for Cole Porter. After Oklahoma he continued to work with Rodgers on Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I and The Sound of Music, as well as the NBC television special Victory at Sea. In his spare time he provided orchestrations for Annie Get Your Gun (1946), Kiss Me Kate (1948), My Fair Lady (1956) and Bells Are Ringing (1956).
New Mexico March
John Philip Sousa
New Mexico March was composed by Sousa in 1928 at the request of J.F. Zimmerman, the president of the University of New Mexico. It was dedicated to the people of the State of New Mexico and its governor, R.C. Dillon. It was originally titled The Queen of the Plateau, but Zimmerman requested a simpler title that would honor the state. The march contains some original music by Sousa, but also included several Spanish, Indian and American songs of New Mexico. They include “O, Fair New Mexico” by Elizabeth Garrett, as well as “La Desgracia,” “Peña” and “Recuerdas de Amistad.”
If there’s a top ten list for most popular American composers, John Philip Sousa (1854-1932) would certainly be on it. He was enormously influential in popularizing an ‘American sound’ in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, a period when European music was predominant. He was born in Washington, DC, of Portuguese ancestry. His musical training was as a violinist; he also studied theory and composition. His father enlisted him in the US Marine Band in 1868. He stayed for several years then left to pursue his own career. He returned to the Marine Band as its director from 1880 to 1892, and transformed the group into the premiere US service band. He left to form his own band and was active until his passing.
The Sousa Band traveled over the US and the world, including 181 performances in Texas. He wrote 137 marches, 15 operettas and 7 books, as well as numerous other works for band and orchestra.
Country Gardens
Percy Aldridge Grainger, adapted by J.P. Sousa, arr. & ed. Brion/Schissel
“Country Gardens” is an English folk tune that Cecil Sharp collected in 1908 and passed on to Grainger, who played improvisations on it during his World War I tour as a concert pianist for the U.S. Army. According to Grainger, it is a dance version of the tune “The Vicar of Bray.” Once published in its original piano form, the tune brought Grainger great success.
However, it was not among his favorite compositions. Later in life, despite the steady stream of income from its royalties, the fame of “Country Gardens,” and the widespread public association of this work as being his best known piece, the work came to haunt Grainger. Mentally, it became his albatross. He came to think of his own brilliant original music as “my wretched tone art.” He once remarked, “The typical English country garden is not often used to grow flowers in; it is more likely to be a vegetable plot. So you can think of turnips as I play it.”
John Philip Sousa admired Grainger’s compositions and programmed them regularly. Sousa knew a good tune when he heard it, and decided to arrange and feature “Country Gardens” in concerts with his own band. This edition of “Country Gardens” by Brion/Schissel has been carefully edited to assure performances are in keeping with Sousa's original intentions.
The Hope Within
Benjamin Dean Taylor
“The Hope Within” was commissioned by the University of the Incarnate Word Wind Ensemble, Brett A. Richardson, Conductor, in memory of the conductor’s mother, Becky Bailey Richardson (1952-2016), who lost her life after a tragic battle with depression.
The composer writes, “While sitting at the piano one day sketching material for this piece, I found myself in tears as I reflected upon the difficulties and hardships in my own life and the lives of family members and friends close to me. Addiction, abuse, the unexpected death of a young child, financial stress, depression, infidelity — all of us are going through hard things, real things, things that seem impossibly hard to get through on our own. I offer this composition as my testimony that the Master Healer can and will ‘bind up the brokenhearted’ (Isaiah 61:1). My hope rests on His power, grace and love. I pray that each of us can find peace and solace, even in hard times, as ‘partaker[s] of his hope’ (1 Corinthians 9:10).”
The music of Benjamin Dean Taylor (born 1983), has been described as “elegant and energetic” (Kenneth Thompson) and “powerful and direct with delightful surprises in each work” (Marilyn Shrude). Having grown up as a performer in jazz, rock, ska, country, and concert bands as well as in choirs and orchestras, Taylor is driven to write music that highlights the strengths of each performing ensemble. His catalog of more than 100 works covers a large range of styles and genres including music written for orchestra, wind band, opera, choir, jazz big band, gamelan, chamber ensembles, and soloists with live electronics.
El Camino Real
Alfred Reed
Program notes by the composer:
“El Camino Real” (literally “The Royal Road” or “The King’s Highway”) was commissioned by, and is dedicated to, the 581st Air Force Band (AFRES) and its commander, Lt. Col. Ray E. Toler. Composed during the latter half of 1984 and completed in early ‘85, it bears the subtitle “A Latin Fantasy.”
The music is based on a series of chord progressions common to countless generations of Spanish flamenco (and other) guitarists, whose fiery style and brilliant playing have captivated millions of music lovers throughout the world. These progressions and the resulting key relationships have become practically synonymous with what we feel to be the true Spanish idiom. Together with the folk melodies they have underscored, in part derived by a procedure known to musicians as the ‘melodizing of harmony,’ they have created a vast body of what most people would consider authentic Spanish music.
The first section of the music is based upon the dance form known as the Jota, while the second, contrasting section is derived from the Fandango, but here altered considerably in both time and tempo from its usual form. Overall, the music follows a tradition three-part pattern: fast-slow-fast.
The first public performance of “El Camino Real” took place on April 15th, 1985, in Sarasota, Florida, with the 581st Air Force Band under the direction of Lt. Col. Ray E. Toler.
Alfred Reed (1921-2005) was one of the most popular and prolific composers of wind band literature in the 20th century. He was born in New York City to Austrian immigrant parents. He began cornet lessons at age 10, and was playing professionally in bands in the Catskills resort hotels as a teenager. In 1938 he began work as an arranger and conductor in the Radio Workshop in New York City, and about this time he changed his last name from Friedman to Reed.
When World War 2 broke out, he enlisted in the 529th US Army Air Force Band, based in Atlantic City, New Jersey. During this time he produced over 150 radio broadcasts of band performances, and wrote over 100 original works and arrangements for the band.
After the war, he briefly attended Juilliard in Manhattan. While there, he studied with Vittorio Giannini. Reed left without completing his degree in 1948 to work as a film and television composer with NBC and later ABC. Reed moved to Texas in 1953, and for two years was the conductor of the Baylor University Symphony Orchestra in Waco. He completed a Bachelors in Music from Baylor in 1955 and received his Masters degree in 1956. His Masters thesis was a work for viola solo and orchestra, which won a major prize for music composition.
Reed moved back to New York in 1955 and was an editor at Hansen Publishing until 1966. While there, he specialized in works for band and began promoting educational band music. He left New York in 1966 to join the faculty at the University of Miami. He taught composition and theory and helped to develop the Music Industry degree program there. Reed remained in Miami until his death.
Reed has over 250 published original works and arrangements for band, orchestra and various ensembles. He was a frequent guest conductor of band ensembles and orchestras in virtually every continent. He also left several hundred unpublished works, which hopefully might receive performances some day.
Program notes by Clifton Jones
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