Music Educator, Composer, and Clinician
Introduce your students to minimalist works with this grade 1 piece suitable for middle and high school bands, inspired by “In C” by Terry Riley. Click here for a recording.
Free Score/Parts Below:
Score
C Instruments
C Instruments (flute)
B-flat Instruments
F Instruments
E-flat Instruments
Bass Clef Instruments
Check out my latest work for solo piano (free score below!):
A modern take on Satie’s Gymnopedies.
I. Gloomy and Hopeless
II. Like a Gentle Rain Storm
III. With Great Sadness
I’ve been working on an exciting new project lately, and I think I’ve come up with a pretty neat idea for a scale to use. It’s a hybrid scale, consisting of a hybrid scale + a mode of limited transposition. Behold, the Acoustic Whole-Tone Scale! Perhaps I’m just coming up with a pretentious title for an octatonic scale with an extra note in it. Or an acoustic scale with an extra note. =P
It contains the notes of the Acoustic (AKA Lydian-Dominant) scale and the whole-tone scale, hence the name:
C D E F# G G# A Bb C (or perhaps C D E F# G Ab A Bb C)
See below the notes of the two scales it is a hybrid of. Or is it a hybrid of a hybrid?
I’ve recently finished four works for middle school band. They are:
1. Night Storm (2015) – Grade 1.0
2. Desert Blues (2015) – Grade 0.5
3. Monsoon (2015) – Grade 1.5
4. Bossa de Bach (2012/2015) – Grade 2 jazz band
My latest composition went from blank page to engraved score and parts in a weekend. I was inspired by the monsoons that occur in the southwest U.S., where I now live and teach. The contrasting sections (modal/minor and major) contrast the power and the beauty of the intense storms which sweep Arizona in the late summer. Enjoy!
I recently had the honor of being commissioned to write an arrangement of “By the Sea of Crystal” for the Lee High School Senior Band in Wyoming, MI. This is the location where I completed my student teaching. This was commissioned to celebrate the graduation of the senior class of 2015, and in memory of David E. Gabrielse. David, the father of director Kevin Gabrielse, passed away in early February of 2015. He was called “Grandpa G” by Lee’s band students. “By the Sea of Crystal” was his favorite hymn.
For those of you who are on Facebook, you can follow me here: https://www.facebook.com/Jason.A.Taurins
I’m very excited to announce that “Venom,” my first original concert band work, will receive its world premiere next month! It will be performed on September 26 by the Rio Rico High School Band in Rio Rico, Arizona, under the baton of my friend Rachel Gasper. A recording will be posted after the premiere. I’m looking forward to working with these students!
Below is the MIDI recording. Purchase here!
https://soundcloud.com/jason-taurins/venom-2013-for-symphonic-band
I entered college with an interest in writing music for wind bands, particularly for middle and high school students. I decided that before I would attempt an original work, I would do an arrangement of a tune I really liked, to acquaint myself with writing for the medium without the difficulty of also writing original material for the ensemble. The result, Oh Shenandoah, can be heard in MIDI below. My old high school band once sightread it, and it was thrilling to hear my arrangement be played! However, unless there is interest, I won’t be publishing the work, mostly because Frank Ticheli’s version is about as close to perfect as one can get. But I had a lot of fun writing this arrangement, and I am proud of the result!
Jason Taurins 