Kangaroo Hill

Elaine Johnson has composed a great new piece for concert band!

The music is rhythmically challenging because as you can imagine kangaroos don't all move in lock-step the way a marching band does. Instead all their hopping is very random and Elaine has done a great job capturing that (much to the chagrin of my musicians who are working hard to keep the rhythmic counting straight!) The piece depicts what Elaine has observed in the land beyond her back yard to depict the life of a group of kangaroos, from the general playfulness to the tenderness of mother and a little joey kangaroo as well as the general life of a group of kangaroos. Mixed in is the playfulness of young joeys learning how to hop and beginning to explore the freedom that brings, and ends with a very upbeat, positve-feeling section.

It's a challenge but we've been rehearsing it once a week since the first week in January and it's coming together very nicely

It's definitely out of the ordinary and I would rate it a grade 5 but I could see some people rating it a grade 4 and others might rate it a grade 6. Definitely not a piece for an amateur band that rehearses three weeks in May and then starts playing weekly concerts through the summer, but for bands that have more time between performances, this will very much be a nice departure from the major warhorses of the band literature while providing excellent challenges to keep everybody (including the conductor!) on their toes.

And I'm sure the audience will love it or I would not have programmed it.