Wind Bands for Hungarian Community Music

The scholarly study of community bands as music communities can be considered a relatively young trend even on an international level. Despite this fact, there is more and more research done on the potential effects they may have on society and music education. Our national literary records on wind bands, however, are mainly focused on their historical background and their legacy in the military. Thus, there is an insufficient amount of information provided on the aspects of sociology and pedagogy. Besides the literary comparison done in our research, we also study the resupply of our national bands in music schools, using available data from the the 2016/2017 Statistical Yearbook of Public Education. This paper serves mainly as a tool of problem identification, laying the groundwork for further researches done in this area.

Music for the Moors and Christians Festivities as Intangible Cultural Heritage: A Specific Genre for Wind Bands in Certain Spanish Regions

This chapter makes a brief approach to the origins and evolution of both wind bands and the Moors and Christians festivals, especially in the Valencian Region, tracing the lines that connected both phenomena at a specific moment in history. The indissoluble relationship that has united them since then has created a musical genre that has not only become one of the most recognisable signs of Valencian society’s identity, but also a treasure of its intangible cultural heritage, and a fundamental part of the economic activity of musical societies in the context of what certain authors call “the ecosystem of the Moors and Christians cluster”. Moors and Christians festivals are linked to the hiring of bands for musical accompaniment in parades and for the celebration of other activities, such as concerts, recreational performances and recordings which make up an essential part of many musical societies’ funding sources.

The Question of Lag: An Exploration of the Relationship Between Conductor Gesture and Sonic Response in Instrumental Ensembles

Group musical performance, especially large instrumental ensembles, present the outward appearance of an asymmetric, temporally immediate stimulus-response relationship between conductor and ensemble. Interestingly, anecdotal reports from both conductors and performers indicate a degree of variability in the timing of orchestral response to the conductor’s gestures. This observation is not present in anecdotal accounts of other instrumental ensemble settings, like wind bands, but commonplace occurrence among orchestral musicians indicates the potential presence of greater complexity in the observed relationship. This study investigates both the quality and quantity of temporal lag between conductor and ensemble in two common instrumental ensemble configurations – wind bands and orchestras – in an effort to describe the interplay present within conducted group performance. The findings indicate that the anecdotally identified lag is present within all ensemble types, and that it presents a flexible, dynamic temporal relationship between conductor and ensemble. Additionally, both the quantity and quality of lag values are significantly different between ensemble types, experience levels, and musical content. Several avenues for future research are identified, and confounds within the sampled ensembles are examined for their potential roles in the observed relationships.

Pursuing diversity from the podium: Insights from Australia for wind band conductors and educators on achieving gender parity for women composers

Gender in music has been explored over recent decades with growing recognition of the challenges that are faced by women in the field. There has been substantial work exploring the Western music canon but little that addresses the music of Australian women, and more specifically, repertoire written for the wind band genre. With thousands of Australian children every year starting their musical journey in their school band, this is an area that has potential for significant impact in addressing the continued gender disparity for composers. In addition, the substantial influence of the conductor in repertoire selection and promotion of the music of women cannot be denied. This article draws its insights from an action research project that explores the journeys and experiences of Australian women composers through interviews along with artistic collaborations between myself and these composers. Furthermore, Australian conductors of wind bands were surveyed to ascertain their understanding of the role that they may play in facilitating change in this area. This article addresses the barriers that composers and conductors experience, the benefits of networks, the generation of additional repertoire, and the subsequent implications for educational contexts.

A Cross-Cultural Examination of Lifelong Participation in Community Wind Bands Through the Lens of Organizational Theory

The purpose of this study was to investigate participant involvement in community wind bands through the lens of organizational theory to inform the music education profession about community wind bands as an “expressive” voluntary association with potential for lifelong participation. Twenty-eight informants were drawn from three community wind bands in the United States and four community wind bands in Singapore. Overall, responses between U.S. and Singapore informants shared many commonalities. Informants from both countries desired musical opportunities that aligned with their interests (incentives and commitment), viewed their participation as defined largely by the ensemble-conductor relationship (formal structures), and preferred rehearsing and performing under the direction of a competent and respectful conductor (leadership and authority). The diversity of bands from which informants were drawn points to the importance of an environment that supports a range of interests for lifelong participation.

The Lilien Partbooks in the Sonsfeld Collection (D-HRD Fü 3741a): A Reconsideration of the Role of Eighteenth-Century Prussian Hautboisten and their Engagement in ‘Art’ Music

In assuming that the violin family of instruments is the staple of Western instrumental art music, Hautboisten, among the most important musicians of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, constitute a neglected area of research. Hautboisten are known to have been among the major suppliers of musical entertainment in the German-speaking lands in the first half of the eighteenth century. The term Hautboistenbande has often been translated by contemporary scholars as ‘oboe band’. Indeed, these ensembles developed into wind bands known as Harmoniemusik; Hautboisten, however, were originally routinely trained to perform on multiple wind instruments as well as string instruments.The Lilien Partbooks, which are part of the Sonsfeld Collection (the Sonsfeldsche Musikalien Sammlung; now held in the Bibliotheca Fürstenbergiana in Herdringen; D-HRD Fü 3741a), represent the most comprehensive primary source of music for such an ensemble. A detailed incipit catalogue of the compositions compiled in these partbooks draws together our current knowledge of the Lilien Partbooks and of eighteenth-century Prussian Hautboisten. The extensive catalogue of the works collated in the six partbooks constitutes a valuable aid for future research.