MANHATTAN BEACH MUSIC
Raising the Standards of the American Concert Band and BANDS all Over the WORLD
Exclusive Australian Distribution by Future Music
This work is the second set of folk songs composed as a tribute to the people of the old Cajun culture. Cajuns are descendants of the Acadians, a group of early French colonists who settled in Nova Scotia and were driven south to Louisiana by the British in the mid-1750s.
Louisiana-born Frank Ticheli based these works on folk melodies whose precise origins are unknown, freely combining them with original music. In the first movement, he opens with a personal reflective brass chorale, followed by two different settings of a Cajun folk song. This melancholy Ballad, with its starkly beautiful textures and harmonies, is followed by a brash and lively Country Dance. This music evokes the energetic feeling and style of a Cajun two-step, a form commonly used in the dance halls of southern Louisiana that has stylistic similarities to Scottish folk dances and the American hoedown.
Performance by the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Symphony Band, Donald S. George conductor.