Colleges of the Fenway Orchestra - Festival Prelude/Festival March

 

On Monday, February 12^th, 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 27^th.  Thanks also to his orchestra for their dedicated work leading up to their performance. 

                                                                    Gena Branscombe 

#BringingBackBranscombe