Скачать или смотреть Groove by Shelley Hanson performed by the Minnesota Youth Symphonies

Groove by Shelley Hanson, performed by the Repertory Orchestra of the Minnesota Youth Symphonies, conducted by Claudette Laureano.

Groove: A Walk Through The Streets of New York
By Claudette Laureano-Copyright © 2006

Back in the autumn of 2001, after the Twin Towers tragedy, I went to a Minnesota Orchestra concert to hear a work written by my good friend and colleague Shelly Hanson. Little did I know that this piece would eventually become one of my favorite contemporary pieces of all time. I love a great melody, and this piece provides that and more in this fantastic and tuneful work called Groove.

Upon first hearing, I wanted to do this piece with my youth orchestra, but several of my friends from the Minnesota Orchestra, as well as Shelly Hanson, strongly discouraged me because the rhythms are very difficult and an intermediate level orchestra would never be able to do it justice. Five years later, my orchestra's ability improved considerably and I could no longer resist and decided that I would take on the challenge and perform the work. The first thing that I did was to isolate the difficult rhythms and teach them to the orchestra separately from the music. This helped enormously. We did intense sectional work also before coming together as an orchestra. With all the preparation we managed to pull it together.

Groove begins with the sound of bagpipes played by the Horns and English Horn, and is then joined by a drum playing in a Celtic style. After this brief introduction, the piccolo plays an infectious melody that eventually makes its way around the orchestra. There are wonderful solos throughout this toe-tapping portion of the piece, and the entire orchestra gets to shine. As we leave the Celtic portion, the piece moves into the Jewish section where it breaks into an uplifting Klezmer melody played by the clarinet, trumpet, trombone, and solo violin. Once again, Shelly is never at a loss for a terrific melody. As in the Celtic portion of the piece, everyone is playing and is challenged technically and musically. The music eventually segues into the final segment of the piece: the Salsa section. This is by far the most difficult and complex music in Groove. The rhythms are very difficult and there are solos throughout.

In order to perform this work effectively, you need to have a solid percussion section, and strong soloists in every section of the orchestra. Luckily, our youth program works in trimesters of ten rehearsals each. That seemed to be adequate for learning this challenging work although I introduced the rhythms to the orchestra about six weeks before and spent about 15 minutes per rehearsal working on just the rhythms. The instrumentation for Groove is standard including English horn, E-flat clarinet, and bass clarinet. What is extensive are the percussion needs. (timpani, bodhran or floor tom, bass drum, triangle, snare drum, drum set, timbales, tambourine, tam-tam, xylophone, suspended cymbal, conga drum, bongo drum, claves, and cowbell). There are notes written by Shelly that explains that this piece can be played with double woodwinds instead or triple woodwinds, and that the tuba, Percussion 4, and timpani are optional. Also optional is a section for audience participation. Performing the piece from beginning to end is just under seven minutes.

The one thing that I can guarantee is that once you begin working on Groove, it will quickly become the highlight of your season. We are still sweating through rehearsals but truthfully, my orchestra and I have loved every moment while working on this piece and I hope that someday again, I will have another orchestra that will be up for the challenges of Groove.