Star Wars Medley - John Williams, arr. James Burden

[RickF]

At our last concert we played a really nice arrangement by James Burden called, "Star Wars Medley" (John Williams). It has a nice solo for euphonium toward the end of the piece. It's Princess Leia's theme. When I first played it in rehearsal it wasn't all that good because I pictured Princess Leia in that skimpy costume with Jabba the Hutt and I lost my buzz. If interested here's a snippet of the concert recording:

Star Wars Medley - Princess Leia's Theme:

[davewerden]

Nice job! I never got to play that as a solo - we used the section, which is OK, too, but...

How fast did you take the section coming up - the one with all the 16ths?

[RickF]

Funny you should ask Dave. Too fast for me. I had to leave a couple of measures out. My tongue just isn’t fast enough for 16th notes in cut time at that tempo.

[John Morgan]

Nice playing, Rick. Yes, I would probably lose my buzz, too. That's funny! I may get that piece for our group.

[JVickers]

Sounds great! Do you have a recording of the full piece? I'm working on this piece with my wind band and have not found many high-quality recordings in the usual places.

[RickF]

Thanks guys.

JVickers, I couldn’t find a great recording for our ‘listening files’ but Orion Concert Band was okay. I usually look for recording by military bands. That opening first chord is weird. Maybe a 9 chord? Not sure. I cut and pasted a different arr for the fanfare in the beginning

Here’s a link to the one our band listened to:
https://app.box.com/s/b3tl34169nxn5y0nqg24nf51g65e5xun

- - - edit - - -
I meant Merion Concert Band

[howrdhodge]

Just a historical reference on that first strange chord pickup that starts the opening fanfare of the suite: Burden was the first to produce a medley of the Star Wars music, and had access to Williams' scores before the movie was released. On one of the special or anniversary releases of the soundtrack to A New Hope (first movie released in 1977) there are some alternate takes of the opening theme where this chord cluster upbeat can be heard. i think Williams decided that it didn't really work, and removed it from the final version, but his scores still referenced it when Burden created these arrangements for band and orchestra. I've played both settings a number of times over the years, and usually make a point of privately asking the conductor to drop that pickup. It has never worked successfully in any group I've played in.

[John Morgan]

Sounds great! Do you have a recording of the full piece? I'm working on this piece with my wind band and have not found many high-quality recordings in the usual places.

This performance is pretty good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq-3...&start_radio=1

[RickF]

Yeah John, that’s the one I was referring to. I remembered it as Orion, but it was Merion. We used that one with exception of the first 20 seconds or so from an orchestra version (same key and just brass fanfare). The finished sample is in the link I shared.

[davewerden]

I FINALLY found a recording of the USCG Band, from an alumni concert in the early 2000's:

http://www.dwerden.com/SoundFiles/Mi...t-StarWars.mp3

[RickF]

Thanks Dave. That sounds wonderful! From the page or description it says, 'AluminConcert'. Sounds like a pretty large group. Thanks for sharing. We’ll have an excellent example for the next time we play that.

[JVickers]

Thanks Dave! Sounds great!