On Monday, February 12th, the Colleges of the
Fenway Orchestra rehearsed Gena Branscombe’s 1914 piece, “Festival
Prelude/Festival March.”
What made this rehearsal special? It is the first rehearsal and soon to be first performance
of the original orchestration of this piece in over 100 years. And, to add more to this explanation, the
original orchestral work is in Miss Branscombe’s manuscript at the New York Public
Library for the Performing Arts. From
scanned photos of the manuscript, the piece was transcribed into Finale,
note by note by note, for the rehearsal to happen!
Damali Willingham, The Gena Branscombe Project’s 2020 Composer
scholarship winner, took on the task of re-creating the score from its original
instrumentation. When a student at
Berklee College of Music in Boston, Damali arranged this same piece for wind
ensemble and conducted the performance in Spring 2022. Damali is one talented musician and a
wonderful, positive person!
Thanks to Dan Ryan for programming Gena’s “Festival
Prelude/Festival March” for the Colleges of Fenway Spring concert on Wednesday,
March 27th. Thanks also to
his orchestra for their dedicated work leading up to their performance.
Gena Branscombe #BringingBackBranscombe