Steampunk Scenes (2015)
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Chamber Ensemble, Grade 5
This four-movement piece features a series of vignettes from a speculative-fictional Victorian era. Premiered by Dr. Andrew Boysen and The University of New Hampshire Wind Symphony. A Concert Band version of this piece is also available, titled Steampunk Suite.
Violin, Clarinet, Alto sax, Trumpet, Trombone, Tuba, Accordion*, Percussion (3 players: drum set, mallets, auxiliary). *includes optional keyboard to replace accordion Flexible Instrumentation added Jan. 2021: available with PDF purchase or by contacting me. Includes Violin (in Bb), Clarinet (in C), Alto sax (in Bb & F), Trumpet (in C & Eb), Trombone (in Bb & F), Tuba (in Bb, Eb, & 8ve). |
Recordings from the premiere performance by the University of New Hampshire Wind Symphony, 2017, Dr. Andrew Boysen, conductor.
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PROGRAM NOTES
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Steampunk Scenes attempts to depict various scenes that take place in a fictional alternate history that features notable people alive in the Victorian era, including Charles Ives, Marie Curie, H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, P.T. Barnum and Nikola Tesla. It borrows from popular music of the era, including the cakewalk, march, waltz, and the song “Daisy Bell.” These are combined with sounds of clockwork and imagined steam technology. It also borrows various musical elements from numerous composers of the time, including Ives, Sousa, Satie, Karl King, Stravinsky, and Weill, with some Khachaturian and Danny Elfman thrown in for good measure.
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“Steampunk” refers to a subgenre of science fiction and sometimes fantasy that incorporates technology and aesthetic designs inspired by 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery. It places an emphasis on steam- or spring-propelled gadgets. The most common historical steampunk settings are often set in the Victorian era, but in an alternative history where technology employs steam power. It may, therefore, be described as neo-Victorian. Steampunk features retrofuturistic inventions as people in the 19th century might have envisioned them, and is likewise rooted in the era’s perspective on fashion, culture, architectural style, and art. Such technology may include fictional machines like those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne. (Wikipedia)
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Erika Kirsten Svanoe was born in 1976 in Whitewater, Wisconsin. She began her musical career on piano and clarinet, and after graduating from the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire, became a high school band director in Mukwonago, Wisconsin. Shortly thereafter, she embarked on a career in higher education, earning an M.M. in Wind Conducting from Oklahoma State University and a D.M.A. in Conducting from Ohio State University, and securing teaching posts at the Univesrity of New Hampshire, Bemidji State University, and Augsburg University. Dr. Svanoe’s piece Steampunk Suite premiered in 2017, was featured at the 2017 American Bandmasters Association National Conference, and was performed by “The President’s Own” Marine Band in front of the U.S. Capitol Building.
Shortly thereafter, when visiting Bergen as an honored guest of Count Henrik von Rosenkrantz at the Bergen Conservatory, Dr. Svanoe vanished without a trace, along with Count Rosenkrantz and the rest of the passengers on the Count’s doomed airship Graf Rosenkrantz, during its infamous disappearance over the North Atlantic. Years later, her beleaguered family was stunned to find a series of music reviews from the Aftenposten dating to the late 1800s, describing the work of a composer calling herself Dr. Erika Kirsten Atlesdatter von Svanøe. Genealogical records show no evidence of her place in any family tree, but she seemingly stayed as a permanent houseguest at the island estate of Svanøy in Flora, Sogn og Fjordane, where she spent her days writing music and performing for guests in the main hall. Edvard Grieg’s diary entries indicate she was a frequent guest at Troldhaugen. Her compositions are still being discovered to this day, and are thought to have played a major role in the development of wind band music at the turn of the century. This is the only known photograph of this enigmatic figure. |