|
MEET THE COMPOSERS |
| The Municipal Band proudly salutes six of its members for their accomplishments as composers. As well as being fine musicians they have contributed to the band literature by writing new pieces and arranging known works. Several of these works have been heard in past concerts and more will be performed in upcoming concerts. |
|
Fred O'Bryant |
Paul Richards |
| If you've been to our Christmas concerts, you've heard Fred 's arrangement of Silent Night. This piece is used as an opening to set the mood for an afternoon/evening of seasonal favorites. Fred got his start in arranging and composing under the instruction of Dan Woodward, his high school band director. While still in high school and taking lessons from Frederic Lubrani, a professor of music and clarinet at Memphis State University, Mr. Lubrani asked him to arrange several works for his college clarinet ensembles. Fred earned a library science degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He came to Charlottesville in 1975, where he presently works in the Science and Engineering Library at the University of Virginia. He continues to compose and arrange for band, solo clarinet and small ensembles. The Band has in recent years performed his march entitled The Happy Hikers and a western impression called The High Trail. He is currently working on several new pieces. He plays clarinet in the Municipal Band. | A native of Knoxville, Tennessee, Paul is the son of a piano teacher and a vocational education teacher. Paul studied a year of piano with his mother then cornet lessons from age thirteen. He was the winner three times of a student tune-writing contest held by the Knoxville Symphony. He is a graduate of Hampton Institute (now University) with a B.S. in Music Education. He has played in his high school band, the Knoxville College Band, Hampton Institute Band and Chamber Orchestra, the 661st Air Force Band, Louisville Kentucky Civic Orchestra, Greenbelt Maryland Concert Band, 257th Army Band, 90th Army Band, and the Charlottesville Municipal Band. He is the arranger and director of player personnel for the P.G. Lowery Star of the West Brass Band. Circus band music is an interest he pursues and has become quite knowledgeable in this area. Paul worked as a chemical operator and lab technician in the manufacture of synthetic rubber and as a commercial insurance underwriter. Paul was most recently a self-employed furniture upholsterer, now retired. |
|
Stephen Edward Millard |
|
| Stephen hails from Providence, Rhode Island.
He holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Music Education from Boston
University’s School of Fine and Applied Arts and a Masters in Music
Education degree from East Carolina University's School of Music. His
military service included assignments as solo clarinetist with the 26th U.S.
Army Band in New York, New York, and as solo clarinetist with the 8th U.S.
Army Band in Seoul, Korea. Stephen retired after nearly thirty years of
teaching music at Jack Jouett Middle School in Albemarle County, Virginia.
One of his music compositions, Monticello Triptych, was written for the 1995
Albemarle County Middle School Honors Band and is dedicated to
guest-director James W. Simmons. The work describes Captain Jack Jouett's
historic cross-country ride from Cuckoo Tavern in Louisa to Monticello on
the evening of June 3, 1781, to warn Governor Thomas Jefferson and members
of the Virginia Assembly of the approach of Tarleton's British Cavalry. |
|
|
Joseph Kornicke |
|
|
Joseph Kornicke is a native of Elizabeth, New Jersey. He earned a Batchelor of Arts Degree (B.A.) in Music Education from Glassboro State College (now Rowan University) in Glassboro, New Jersey. In addition to his Music Education Degree he received an Arts Masters (A.M.) in Musical Composition from the University of Pennsylvania. He also attended Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana and was lacking only his dissertation for a Doctorate in Musical Composition from New York University. Joe taught instrumental and general music for 25 years in Elizabeth, New Jersey. He was also an instructor of second year gifted theory music majors at Glassboro State College in Glassboro, New Jersey and was also an Associate Music Instructor at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana. He continues composing, playing the clarinet in the Charlottesville Municipal Band, practicing the piano and most of all, enjoying his retirement along with his wife, Wanda, in Waynesboro, VA. Performances of several of his compositions have been played by: The Municipal Band of Charlottesville, Manhattan School of Music, State University of New York at Potsdam, California Institute of the Arts, Indiana University, and readings done by The United States Air Force Band. The compositions include: “Fanfare for Concert Band”, “March Rondo Caprice”, “Elegy for the Fallen in Operation Iraqui Freedom”, and “Dialogues for Percussion". |
|
Biographies of composers Gary Fagan and Charles Torian may be found on the Assistant Directors page.
From the SPECIAL EDITION of FORTISSIMO Summer 2003 by Clara Mincer, Editor.