Nightride

Nightride, op. 233

W. H. Oliver Middle School Band, Nashville, Tennessee

Susan Waters, Director, Katie Harrah and Kevin Jankowski, Assistant Directors 

2021 - grade 3.5 - 5:35

FJH Music

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This impressive composition includes expressive moments that range from menacing to tender, aggressive to introspective, and capricious to heroic.  The multi-meter high-speed romp in the opening Allegro yields to a heartfelt, lyrical Adagio before returning to variations of the initial theme that culminates in a raucous conclusion.  Everyone has melodic moments and the percussion certainly has opportunities to shine.

While there is no specific storyline behind Nightride, the inspiration was actually drawn from feelings of wanting to escape from the 2020 start of the pandemic through imagining or dreaming of a way to leave it all behind by getting in the car and driving through the night to a safer place.  Since that sounds rather ridiculous in writing, I opted not to include that in the program note!  Instead, it may be best to think of this as a metaphor - navigating a ride through the night, being alone with your thoughts, working through ways to deliver yourself out of the dark moments in life into the light.