![]() ![]() But Odysseus’ journey would take as long as the war itself. The full symphony tells the tale of Odysseus and his journey home following his victory in the Trojan War. He provides the following program notes on his website (to which I have added some links): It was, in a sense, crowd-funded: Mackey put out a call on his personal Facebook page anyone interested in such a work, and within hours had amassed a consortium of 47 members. This Cruel Moon (2017) is an adaptation for younger bands of “Immortal thread, so weak,” the second movement of Mackey’s Wine-Dark Sea: Symphony for Band. He is also on Twitter and has a Facebook composer page. He is featured on Wikipedia and the Wind Repertory Project. This doubles as his blog, which is very informative for anyone looking for a composer’s perspective on new music (and pictures of food). John Mackey publishes his own music through his website. I once heard him state that he counted the band Tool among his musical influences. His compositional style is fresh and original. ![]() He won again in 2009 with Aurora Awakes. More recently, he was honored by the American Academy of Arts and Letters with the 2018 Wladimir and Rhoda Lakond Award in Music. Mackey’s works for wind ensemble and orchestra have been performed around the world, and have won numerous composition prizes. His Redline Tango, originally for orchestra and then transcribed by the composer for band, won him the American Bandmasters Assocation/Ostwald Award in 2005, making him, then 32, the youngest composer ever to receive that prize. All are challenging, and many are innovative. With this attitude and his prodigious talent, John Mackey has become a superstar composer among band directors. He has even eclipsed his former teacher, John Corigliano, by putting out dozens of new band works, including a symphony, since 2005. The band, meanwhile, is loud and brash, but loves everything you do and can’t wait to play your stuff, the newer, the better! (I’ve rather poorly paraphrased Mackey – it’s best understood in his original blog post on the subject). The orchestra seems ideal for you, but clearly feels superior and talks a lot about a whole slew of exes (like Dvorak and Beethoven). 1973) once famously compared the band and the orchestra to the kind of person a composer might be attracted to at a party. ![]()
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