The 9th grade band — who helped compose the new “Clay County Overture” as 8th graders — premier the new piece at the Moorhead High School band concert March 24. (Photo/Pam Redlinger.)
Nancy Edmonds Hanson
Three years ago, the Horizon Middle School bands set off on an adventure – taking part in the birth of a brand-new musical composition all their own, dedicated to their own home town.
Parents and friends will get to meet the newborn “Red River Overture” on Thursday, March 24, when the 9th grade band performs its world premier at Moorhead High School. It’s a highlight of the high school and 8th grade band concert, which begins at 7:30 p.m.
Like so many projects conceived on the eve of the two-year pandemic, the commission of the original piece by Darryl Johnson II ran into unanticipated challenges and delays.
Tim Pipinich, who with Dan Christianson directs the bands at Horizon East and West, contacted prolific composer Johnson in 2019 to work with his students to create the piece. “A two-year project turned into three because of Covid,” Pipinich reports. “We hoped to have the 8th grade band premier it a year ago, but the pandemic ruled out both the performance and Johnson’s visit.
“Now the 9th grade band – the same students, but one year older – will get to perform it.” Pam Redlinger, director of the 9th grade band, has been directing them in practice. Johnson will be on hand Thursday to rehearse with the band, and Pipinich will conduct that night.
While Covid-19 complicated the process, Pipinich says his students still got to participate in the creative process. They conferred with Johnson via online video, discussing the themes that became three distinct movements and adding their suggestions for instrumentation. The composer himself plans to be in Moorhead for the concert next week, when he’ll meet with students to introduce them to the composition process. “This is a testimonial to how music and the arts got to keep going, even despite the obstacles,” the director says. “The students are so stoked!”
The result: An overture with a trio of movements distinctly Moorhead by nature. As Johnson explains the piece, the first, “Red River Rushing,” conveys its spirit with a “bubbling, buoyant melody over a cool, bright accompaniment.”
The second movement, “Sweets and Treats,” is based on another student suggestion – their love of summer sweets at the Dairy Queen and the Freez. Says Johnson, “Alto saxophones and horns get their time in the sun, and the low woodwinds face a challenging but fun agility workout.”
The third movement, “Viking Thunder,” addresses its theme with “the power of the low brass – heavy, brash and pioneering,” the composer says, followed by what he terms a “celebratory conclusion.”
The cost of commissioning Johnson to collaborate with local teens and compose the piece, about $3,000, was funded by two grants. One was an Allegro grant from the Lake Agassiz Concert Band; the other came from the Moorhead Legacy Foundation, which supports the work of the schools.
Moorhead bands retain the sole right to perform the composition for the coming year. After that, it will be available to other schools all over the world.
That long-term exposure led to voting down one popular theme the students had dreamed up: wild turkeys. “The turkeys could have made a fun novelty section,” the director concedes. “It would go over great here in Moorhead. But when the overture is being played by bands in California or Japan years from now, they wouldn’t know what to make of it.”
