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From Introduction to British Music for Wind Band, A Selective Literature Guide:

During the last three decades, Great Britain has seen a resurgence of interest in the wind band. The ensemble has not only gained respect for the quality of its music making, but it has also attracted the attention of Britain's best mainstream composers. No longer content to sustain itself on the orchestral transcriptions and marches that were the mainstays of its repertoire between 1930 and 1970, the British wind band now has organizations to guide its growth, very capable conductors to champion its cause and, most importantly, the finest composers eager to contribute music of artistic merit to its repertoire.

One organization driving this 'renaissance' of wind band repertoire is the British Association of Symphonic Bands and Wind Ensembles (BASBWE). Founded in 1981, BASBWE has initiated the commissioning of a new repertoire from composers who are, generally, unfamiliar with the wind band medium and its existing repertoire. The BASBWE commissions, therefore, have produced compositions with new sonorities, flexible instrumentations, and a melodic and harmonic content no longer dependent upon the folk-derived material that has so dominated the genre in the past.

Besides BASBWE, the Royal Northern College of Music Wind Orchestra has been central to the development of the new repertoire. The Wind Orchestra and its conductor Timothy Reynish have commissioned more than twenty new works and returned several long-forgotten masterpieces to the repertoire. Their premiers of major wind compositions, including works by Michael Ball, Irwin Bazelon, Nigel Clarke, David Bedford, Richard Rodney Bennett, Martin Butler, Anthony Gilbert. Adam Gorb, Robin Holloway, Nicholas Maw, Colin Matthews, Edward Shipley, Philip Wilby and Guy Woolfenden. have placed the ensemble at the forefront of wind repertoire development and have helped to establish the Royal Northern College of Music Wind Orchestra as one of the finest ensembles of its kind in the world. Jonathan E Good, Dean of Music Department, University of Las Vegas

Attached is a listing of over seventy works which the School of Wind & Percussion of the RNCM either commissioned, co-commissioned or premiered between 1982 and 2002. (I have included Guy's Illyrian Dances, (Ariel) for while I did not commission it, nor conduct the premiere, he kindly dedicated it to me, and I love to introduce it to new audiences).

This voyage into new repertoire with composers was in part due to a feeling I had that the world of wind music needed more works of substance. In the attached list of commissioned works, there are over forty-five works listed at 10 minutes or more, and while brevity is reputed to be the source of wit, yet we do need major works in our programmes. It seemed to me when traversing the USA on my Churchill Fellowship in 1982, that the standard of technical work here was extremely high, that some exciting music was being created, but that much of the programming remained strongly influenced by the great John Philip Sousa and his colleagues of a hundred years ago, an overture, a transcription, a cornet solo, a novelty item, a march, perhaps something contemporary, a suite, another march... I felt that we needed to create more major works, perhaps following the scope and breadth of:

Work/th>	Composer
Winds of Nagual	Colgrass
A Child's Garden of Dreams	Maslanka
...and the Mountains rising nowhere	Schwantner

A particular interest has been the commissioning of concertos, involving professional players or faculty and providing a focal point in the concert. Conversely, most of the shorter works in the list, were written especially for us to platform at a BASBWE Conference for less experienced bands to tackle in the future.

Composer - Conductor - Ensemble - Audience

There are four parts to the equation in creating a repertoire - the composer, the ensemble and conductor, the audience, and the publisher; I am delighted that nearly all of our commissioned music is in the public domain, much of it on sale. While much of this repertoire presents a challenge, either musicall, interllectuially, technically, emotionally, or all four, yet I believe that many of these works speak to both players and audiences. In addition there one other very important factor so often ignored, the dissemination of information about the best music, and I am grateful to WASBE, BASBWE and CBDNA for letting me write about the commissions in their columns.

Finally there is another vital ingredient, one with its own inherent danger of creating a cloned style of performance; I refer to the compact disc. We at the Royal Northern College were fortunate in working with composers on definitive performances of their works for many of these recordings:

CD Number	CD Title
DOY CD037	The Wind Music of Richard Rodney Bennett
DOY CD042	The Wind Music of Guy Woolfenden
DOY CD082	The Wind Music of David Bedford
DOY CD043	The Wind Music of Edward Gregson
DOY CD106	Dove Descending, A Passion for our Time by Philip Wilby
DOY CD 127	Elements/Gorb: Three American Icons/Bingham; Heathcote's Inferno/Marsh. Available from Doyen Recordings, Doyen Centre, Vulcan Street, Oldham, OL1 4EP
SERCD 2400	Metropolis/Gorb; Paris Sketches/Ellerby; Sailing with Archangels/Poole; Samurai/Clarke

In addition we have made five commercial recordings with CHANDOS RECORDS which are available world-wide from any record stores:

CD Number	CD Title
CHAN 9549	Grainger Works for Wind Orchestra Vol 1
CHAN 9630	Grainger Works for Wind Orchestra Vol 2
CHAN 9697	British Wind Band Classics
CHAN 9805	German Wind Band Classics
CHAN 9897	French Wind Band Classics

E - M - I - T

In this age of acronyms, I have come up with EMIT which contains most of what I look for in a work which I want to programme. I am not so interested in the academic reasons which some colleagues give for including a work in the "core" repertoire.

First and foremost for me, a work must communicate EMOTION to both players and audience, not only excitement which bands do extremely well, but also humour, pathos, sadness, lyricism, drama. I am looking for sentiment without becoming sentimental, for light and shade, comedy and tragedy. At the end of a concert, I always hope that players and audience have journeyed emotionally as they might do at the theatre, cinema or art gallery.

For me a work must be MUSICAL, whatever that means. I guess that in a musical piece I can teach phrasing, balance, tone, ensemble, architecture, all of those things which you expect to find in a Brahms Symphony or Mozart Overture. I want to engage the players in musical challenges, not just note-crushing.

Thirdly I hope that the work will bring INTELLECTUAL challenges to the players, and possibly to the audience. These players, whether amateur, student or professional, are grappling or have grappled with science, computer studies or language skills way beyond anything I coped with, and I feel it is an insult to their intelligence and that of the audience to dumbdown my music choice.

Lastly I think it is important to challenge them TECHNICALLY. The best players will sweep the less experienced along in rehearsal and performance, but to go at the speed of the weakest is to invite apathy and atrophy.

But if the music does not speak to most of the players and audience emotionally, if it is simply an intellectual exercise, then throw it away. I hope that most of our ninety commissions speak in one way or another.

Commissioning Project - 90 Commissions & Premieres Of A Quarter Century

1981 - 2006

Tim Reynish July 2006

Between 1981 and 2002, over seventy new works were created, either commissioned for the wind orchestra of the Royal Northern College of Music, premiered by the orchestra, or commissioned as part of a consortium which included the College.

Composer	Work	Publisher	Year	Duration
Ball, Michael	Omaggio	Novello	1987	17.00
Ball, Michael	Saxophone Concerto	Maecenas	1984	18.00
Ball, Michael	Three Processionals	Studio	1998	5.00
Bazelon, Irwin	Midnight Music	Novello	1991	20.00
Bedford, David	Praeludium	Novello	1990	6.00
Bennett, Richard Rodney	Morning Music	Novello	1987	17.00
Bennett, Richard Rodney	The Four Seasons	Novello	1991	19.00
Bennett, Richard Rodney	Trumpet Concerto	Novello	1993	20.00
Bingham, Judith	Three American Icons	Maecenas	1997	18.00
Bingham, Judith	Bright Spirit	Maecenas	2002	7.00
Binney, Malcolm	Timpanaglia	Maecenas	1998	12.00
Bourgeois, Derek	Symphony of Winds	G&M Brand	1981	14.00
Bourgeois, Derek	Northern Lament	G&M Brand	1998	4.00
Bourgeois, Derek	Overture Green Dragon	Hafabra	arr 2001	6.00
Butler, Martin	Still Breathing	OUP	1992	12.00
Butterworth, Arthur	Tundra	Vanderbeek	1984	19.00
Carpenter, Gary	Sunderland Lasses, Wearside Lads	Camden	1997	12.00
Carroll, Fergal	Amphion	Maecenas	2000
Casken, John	Distant Variations	Schott	1997	12.00
Clarke, Nigel	Samurai	Maecenas	1995	14.00
Colgrass, Michael	Dream Dancing	AMP	2001	18.00
Ellerby, Martin	New World Dances	Studio	1998	8.00
Ellerby, Martin	Venetian Spells	Studio	1997	12.00
Ellis, David	Dance Rhapsody	mss	1997	8.00
Ellis, David	Fantasia	mss	1996	15.00
Ewers, Timothy	Concerto Grosso	Maecenas	1998	10.00
Firsova, Elena	Captivity	mss	1999	8.00
Fitkin, Graham	Game show for soprano saxophone	mss	1998
Gilbert, Anthony	Dream Carousels	Schott	1988	15.00
Gilbert, Anthony	Up-Rising	York Uni	2002	12.00
Glasser, Stanley	Lament for a Princess	Woza	1997	8.00
Gorb, Adam	Awayday	Maecenas	1996	6.00
Gorb, Adam	Bridgewater Breeze	Maecenas	1998	10.00
Gorb, Adam	Elements (Percussion concerto)	Maecenas	1997	27.30
Gorb, Adam	Yiddish Dances	Maecenas	1998	12.00
Gorb, Adam	Candelight Procession	G&M Brand	2001	4.00
Gorb, Adam	Symphony no 1 in C	Maecenas	2001	17.00
Grange, Philip	Shen Shen Bu Shi for solo clarinet	Maecenas	2000
Harper, Edward	Double Variations	OUP	1989	14.00
Hayden, Sam	After the Event	mss	1996	26.00
Hesketh, Kenneth	Danceries	Faber	2000	12.00
Holloway, Robin	Entrance; Carousing & Embarcation	Boosey	1991	25.00
Johnson, Julian	Breathing Space	Maecenas	1995	8.00
Longstaff, Edward	Changing Scenes	Novello	1998	6.00
Marsh, Roger	Heathcote's Inferno	Maecenas	1996	17.00
Marshall, Christopher	Aue	Maecenas	2001	7.00
Matthews, Colin	Toccata Meccanica	Faber	1984/92	10.00
Maw, Nicholas	American Games	Faber	1991	23.00
Mayo, Kevin	Spectral	mss	1997
McNeff, Stephen	Ghosts	Maecenas	2001	20.00
McNeff, Stephen	Wasteland Music	Maecenas	2000	15.00
McNeff, Stephen	Wasteland Music 2	Maecenas	2001	12.00
Muldowney, Dominic	Dance Movements	Ariel	1996	17.00
Musgrave, Thea	Journey through a Japanese Landscape	Novello	1994	23.00
Patterson, Paul	Little Red Riding Hood	Weinberger	2001	25.00
Poole, Geoffrey	Sailing with Archangels	Maecenas	1992	17.00
Poole, Geoffrey	Tides Turning	Maecenas	1992	5.00
Premru, Ray	Tuba Concerto (wind version)	mss
Roxburgh, Edwin	Time's Harvest	Maecenas	2000	10.42
Sallinen, Aulis	A Palace Rhapsody	Novello	1997	16.00
Taylor, Matthew	Blasket Dances	Maecenas	1992	12.00
Tippett, Michael	Triumph	Schott	1992	15.00
Tower, Joan	Fascinatin' Ribbons	AMP	2001	8.00
Wilby, Philip	Firestar	Chester	1983	12.00
Wilby, Philip	Laudibus in Sanctis	Chester	1993	8.00
Wilby, Philip	A Passion for our Time	Maecenas	1997	25.00
Wilby, Philip	And I look around the Cross	Chester	1985	10.00
Woolfenden, Guy	Gallimaufry	Ariel	1983	12.00
Woolfenden, Guy	Illyrian Dances	Ariel	1986	10.00
Woolfenden, Guy	Mockbeggar Variations	Ariel	1991	10.00
Woolfenden, Guy	Birthday Treat	Ariel	1998	3.00

Woolfenden In Waco

H Robert Reynolds said to me back in 1982 when I visited Ann Arbor on a Churchill Fellowship: All we can do is to make it better for the next generation. The job is only partially done, and I hope that the commissioning will continue, introducing new composers to the medium, and hence to new audiences. It has certainly been a great experience in recent years to have the opportunity to conduct works which I helped to create, Bennett in Boston, Casken in Croatia, Marshall in Manchester, Sallinen in South Kensington, Woolfenden and Wilby in Waco.