Ben has arranged several well-known Christmas songs for performance by unison choir and concert band, to be sung along with audiences. Songs include Joy to the World, Silent Night, Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, and other beloved Christmas tunes. You can request parts and scores below. Check It Out: […]
The House on the Hill was premiered on October 6, 2021 by the Fillmore Central High School Marching Band. It was originally to be performed the year before, but was delayed due to the COVID pandemic. It is unique in that its original design has all percussionists stationary on-field, instead […]
2020 was premiered on April 30, 2021 by the Fillmore Central High School Marching Band. Each year when I start our Symphonic Composition Project the piece is just named whatever year it happens to be. You may have noticed that “2020” did not premiere in 2020 – like everything else […]
Jul, jul, strålande jul was premiered on December 16, 2019 by the combined Fillmore Central High School Concert Choir and Concert Band. The original lyrics were written by Edvard Evers and music composed by Gustaf Nordqvist. The school I teach at hosts foreign exchange students regularly, which is an awesome […]
Haboob was premiered on May 6, 2019 by the Fillmore Central High School Concert Band. From start to finish it gains momentum and sweeps the audience and performers off their feet! “A haboob is a type of intense dust storm carried on an atmospheric gravity current, also known as a weather front. Haboobs occur regularly […]
The Inventor And His Foley was premiered on May 7, 2018 by the Fillmore Central High School Concert Band. The Inventor And His Foley took a while to materialize. There are several students’ Symphonic Composition Project submission note-for-note in the final work, but I had a hard time figuring out […]
Choking Hazard was premiered on May 9, 2017 by the Fillmore Central High School Concert Band. My inspiration for the main idea of this song came about a month before I actually sat down to write. I took a student to the UNK honor choir, which provided me the excellent […]
Nacht was premiered by the Fillmore Central High School Concert Band on December 17, 2009. It was rewritten in 2016 for combined band and choir. Nacht was my second slow piece for concert band. I learned a lot from my experiences on Variations of Grace and had been working with […]
Fluet was premiered on May 3, 2016 by Aiwa Temme and Haley Hiatt. High school kids always keep you on your toes. Some days they make gorgeous, soul-fulfilling music and some days they decide to play their flutes backwards. On one of the latter days, I told the girls messing […]
The Walking Wind was premiered on May 3, 2016 by the Fillmore Central High School Concert Band. The Walking Wind started as an experiment – the title came to me before the piece ever did, so I dug through Symphonic Composition Project submissions looking for ideas that could fit that […]
Veni, Veni Emmanuel was premiered on December 17, 2015 by the combined Fillmore Central High School Concert Choir and Concert Band. My favorite way to spice up an arrangement of a song is to warp the time signature. As I started my arrangement of the well-known Christmas carol O Come, […]
The Rock was premiered on May 5, 2015 by the Fillmore Central High School Concert Band. No piece of visual art has ever captivated me like Peter Blume’s The Rock. I first saw it as a freshman in college while on band tour to Chicago. We had a free day […]
Suite No. 1 in G major – Prelude was premiered on April 19, 2015 by Ben Kaye-Skinner. While waiting for a wedding to begin in the summer of 2013, I listened to Jessica Dussault playing her cello. She is a marvelous player, and we had worked together on projects with The Colonel […]
Spiderman: The Musical: The Musical was premiered on August 22, 2014 by the Colonel Mustard Amateur Attic Theatre Company and then performed at the Cornservatory in Chicago. A play within a play (within a play?) The “Inception” of backyard musicals. With great power comes… little to no responsibility. The idea […]
Red Tide was premiered on May 6, 2014 by the Fillmore Central High School Marching Band. It honored the 70th anniversary of the landing at Normandy Beach, most commonly known as “D-Day,” in which thousands of Allied soldiers landed in northern France to fight the Axis forces that had taken […]
Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Mvt. 4 was premiered by the Fillmore Central High School Concert Band and Concert Choir on December 19, 2013. At the time this was easily the largest project I had undertaken. With some reference scores on hand, I went about trying to decide which parts of […]
Jurassic Park: The Musical was premiered on May 2, 2009 by The Colonel Mustard Amateur Attic Theatre Company. It was rewritten and Jurassic Park: The Musical 3D was premiered on August 23, 2013. It was performed in a sellout run in the fall of 2016, then reprised in spring 2017 […]
Dance of Lucifer was premiered on May 7, 2013 by the Fillmore Central High School Marching Band. On my fifth edition of the Symphonic Composition Project I had to make use of my percussion section. Some of the other pieces we had programmed were pretty light on the percussion parts, […]
The House on the Hill was premiered on December 13, 2012 by the combined Fillmore Central High School Concert Choir and Concert Band. When I set out to compose my second combined band and choir piece, I went to one of my favorite carols, In Dulci Jubilo. A couple years […]
Fantasia on Christmas Carols was premiered on December 6th and 7th, 2008 by the combined festival choirs and bands of Doane College. Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote Fantasia on Christmas Carols for baritone solo, chorus, and orchestra in 1912. I was commissioned by Doane College nearly a hundred years later to […]
Pomp and Circumstance was premiered on May 12, 2012 by the Fillmore Central High School Concert Band. This arrangement was designed to be as simple and still sound good, easily adapted to be played as long as is necessary and with minimal rehearsal time. Sir Edward Elgar wrote his Pomp […]
Originally titled “It’s 7/8 Somewhere,” Septo was premiered on May 8, 2012 by the Fillmore Central High School Concert Band. Heptaphobes should consult their psychiatrists before performing this piece. The idea for Septo came long before a note ever hit the page. After I wrote Tuo Edisni (The Caktak March) […]
The Bacon March (Yankee Doodle Delicious) was premiered on May 11, 2011 by the Fillmore Central High School Concert Band. Make sure your bacon is cooked to your liking when you perform, lest you be stuck with raw food… This is what happens when you let high schoolers name your […]
The House on the Hill was premiered on May 10, 2011 by the Fillmore Central High School Concert Choir. After a couple successful years of the Symphonic Composition Project, I decided to try the project with my choir. This presented more challenges, as I expected the students not only to […]
Eine kleine Nachtmusik (K 525) was premiered on April 15, 2011 by Sam Rickert and Andrew Votipka. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote Eine kleine Nachtmusik (Serenade No. 13 for strings in G major), K. 525 for a chamber ensemble in 1787. I wrote this for a pair of students that wanted […]
Solo For Narcissist and Mirror was premiered with the wonderful Nancy Jo Galusha at the piano on February 27, 2011. It was edited and performed again in 2015, featuring Maggie Doane (also wonderful) on piano. The inspiration for this song comes from the everyday life of a band director: we […]
O Laetissimum Nuntium was premiered on December 16, 2010 by the combined Fillmore Central High School Concert Choir and Concert Band. As I was digging through my files looking for Christmas music, I stumbled across an old arrangement of “Joy to the World” for combined band and chorus. I looked […]
Balli, Balli, Balli! was premiered on May 11, 2010 by the Fillmore Central High School Concert Band. With the second installment in the Symphonic composition project, I had a better feel for looking for melodic and complimentary ideas in the students’ writings. The result was Balli, Balli, Balli!, and even […]
We Five Kings was premiered on December 17, 2009 by the Fillmore Central High School Concert Band. I first got the idea for We Five Kings while driving down the interstate when I was in high school. Why I remember that, I have no idea, but I had my dad […]
Jesu, Joy of Man’s Discomfort was premiered on July 18, 2009, much to the chagrin of the brass quintet that performed it. Jesu, Joy of Man’s Discomfort was written October 25th, 2007. The piece was inspired by Derek Bourgeois’ Serenade, which he wrote for his own wedding. States his score: Derek […]
The House on the Hill was premiered on May 12, 2009 by the Fillmore Central High School Concert Band. It was rewritten in 2018 for marching band. Meizhou Bao was the first product of the Symphonic Composition Project. As I was looking over the students’ work, I found one that had […]
Sing Unto God was written January 2009 I very clearly remember the evening I got the idea for this song: the first house I rented after college did not have a dishwasher (which is a terrible thing for a bachelor), so when I ran out of counter space I knew […]
Amazing Grace was premiered on December 5, 2008. In the fall of 2008 I went with my mom to visit a member of our church whose health was failing. While we were visiting with him and his wife, he expressed his desire to have me play the tuba at his […]
Through The Looking Glass was premiered on April 20, 2008 by the Doane College Symphonic Wind Ensemble. Through the Looking Glass was my first “hey, let’s have an experiment” composition. The original plan was to compose a piece whose woodwind parts would be a mirror image of the brass parts. […]
The House on the Hill was premiered on April 20th, 2008 by the by the Doane College Symphonic Wind Ensemble. When I was student teaching in college I was lucky to work with Dr. Evan Lee at Norris Public Schools. Not only was he a great mentor for music education, […]
Fanfare and Proclamation was premiered on October 7, 2007 by the Doane College Symphonic Wind Ensemble. I wrote the parts with the mindset of a veteran tuba player: I’ve played countless marches with “oom-pas” and concert pieces with half notes that nearly put me to sleep and I didn’t want […]
Tuo Edisni (The Caktak March) was premiered on October 8th, 2006 by the Doane College Symphonic Wind Ensemble. Let’s be honest – marches are a chore for tuba and horn players. Until the dogfight, the part is predictable – usually you can give a tubist the key and they don’t […]
Für Elisa McGlynn was premiered on April 7, 2006, much to the dismay of my college professors. Für Elisa McGlynn is an arrangement of Beethoven’s Für Elise. I use “arrangement” only in the most technical sense – all I did was change the key from A minor to A major […]
Trio Sonata, Op. 3, No 2: Third Movement was premiered on February 21st, 2006 by Dave Purdham, Brandon Stange, and myself. I first came to know Arcangelo Corelli’s Trio Sonatas in my college music history class, through the Norton texts. That first semester of music history was tough for me […]
Variations of Grace was premiered on October 16, 2006 by the Doane College Symponic Wind Ensemble. It was the first time a concert piece of mine was performed for an audience. Variations of Grace was my first concert band composition that I ever got to hear played by a real […]