ALWAYS (2023)

for concert band

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Love. What are we without it? It is everything and yet, it is so hard to justly put it into words. Love is a feeling we all experience in some capacity and this piece is my best attempt to set it to music. In particular, Always is written for my love, Tori. I was already sketching a piece for her - the melody of which is introduced by the horns at m. 23 - when one day I was improvising on the piano and she heard what I was playing from another room.

Her: “What are you working on?”
Me: “I don’t know just yet”

Her: “Well that’s beautiful, you should write that down before you forget it.”

As usual, she was right. The melody she heard is introduced by the alto saxophone at m. 5.
These two melodies are the lifeblood of the composition and flow throughout the work in various forms - sometimes independent and sometimes intertwined.

As for the title, I decided to reference one of the most powerful quotes from the Harry Potter series. If you’re an HP fan, you already know it. If you aren’t, it’s difficult to explain without getting too deep into the weeds of literature you probably aren’t particularly interested in. I’ll just leave it at this, Always is the description of how I love my wife: then, now, always.

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Premiered by the Lambert HS (GA.) Wind Ensemble at the 2023 Midwest Clinic

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