Clarion performs at picnic
Brass choir offers ‘Cycling Music’
Strauss had his waltzing music.
Sousa had his marching music.
Why shouldn’t William Berry have his cycling music?
Berry, the composer/ trumpeter/impresario of Clarion, the Spokane brass choir, has written an entire trumpet concerto with brass accompaniment titled “Cycling Music.”
It will be the centerpiece of Clarion’s first Picnic Concert on Sunday at St. George’s School.
Berry is an avid cyclist, which helps explain both why he wrote the piece and why this is the rare concert with a “car penalty” built into its ticket structure (your car, essentially, has to have its own ticket). Plenty of attendees will no doubt arrive by bicycle, possibly with panniers full of picnic items.
So, will “Cycling Music” be filled with the clash of gear changes and the sound of wind whistling through spokes?
Hardly. Let’s allow Berry himself to explain it, from an interview this week and from his own written notes:
• “There are four movements, all based on the rhythms and feelings of cycling.”
• “There’s the tension of being hit and the fun of going fast.”
• “There is a feeling I get on long rides … (it) makes me feel like I’m flying effortlessly over the landscape. This music captures that feeling with a rhythmic melodic gesture which is repeated throughout the movement, but which gradually evolves, so that it is never really the same for more than a few repetitions.”
“Cycling Music” has been performed in various forms previously, but this will be the first time that Berry himself will be the trumpet soloist.
The rest of the concert will be more traditional – although “traditional” is relative when it comes to Clarion.
You’ll hear the blazing “March to the Stake” from Symphonie Fantastique by Berlioz, and an excerpt from Elgar’s Enigma Variations. But there will also be brass-choir versions of “Ghost Riders in the Sky” and “Walk Like an Egyptian.”
“We like to see how far we can go with brass instruments,” said Berry.
The show will be filled out with a swinging version of Gershwin’s “Summertime” and the “burglary” music from Gilbert & Sullivan’s “The Pirates of Penzance.”
“The great thing about St. George’s is that it’s so isolated that we don’t have to go through mikes,” Berry said of the quiet setting.
The gates open at 1 p.m. for the 2 p.m. concert. Picnics are encouraged (no barbecues). Bring blankets and low-slung chairs.
If the weather is bad, the concert moves into the St. George’s gym.