"Only Light"
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can." - MLK Jr.
About our Artist-in-Residence
Dr. Alfred L. Watkins is Co-Musical Director and Conductor of the Cobb Wind Symphony. He is former Director of Bands at Lassiter High School in Marietta, Georgia for 31 years. Mr. Watkins is a 1976 graduate of Florida A&M University. In 2022, he was conferred an Honorary Doctorate from the VanderCook College of Music. His bands have earned the Sudler Flag of Honor, Sudler Shield, and Sudler Silver Scroll and have performed at 32 invitational concert band events. He has conducted All-State High School Bands in 27 states and has worked with bands in 38 states.
Ensembles under Dr. Watkins’ batons have performed Midwest Band Clinic (five times), MFA National Festival (six times), GMEA Convention (six times) and the NBA Convention. The Lassiter Trojan Marching Band has performed in Rose Parade and Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. They are the 2-time Bands of America Grand National Champions and winner of nine Bands of America Regionals. The Lassiter Winter Color Guard was named the 2-time Winter Guard International World Champions and the Lassiter Percussion Ensemble performed at the GMEA Convention, MFA National Percussion Festival twice and won the PAS “Call for Tapes” in 2007.
Dr. Watkins is a member of the ABA, FAMU Gallery of Distinguished Alumni, CS Institute Hall of Fame, BOA Hall of Fame, MBDNA Hall of Fame, and has received the Edwin Franko Goldman Award from ASBDA. He has received the KKY “Distinguished Service to Music Award” and was the PBM “International Bandmaster of the Year in 2020.” He was awarded the “2022 Outstanding Conductor Award” by the Association of Community Bands. He has received 27 Certificates of Excellence from the NBA, the Sudler Order of Merit from the John Philip Sousa Foundation, and the Band World Magazine Legion of Honor Award. Dr. Watkins is a Co-Founder of MBDNA and is on the Advisory Boards of the Midwest Clinic and Association of Concert Bands.
The $1.5 million Alfred L. Watkins Band Building at Lassiter High School bears his name.
Let Freedom Ring
Ryan Nowlin
About the piece:
Before The Star-Spangled Banner officially became the national anthem in 1931, there were many popular hymns that served as de facto anthems for the United States, including My Country ‘tis of Thee. The lyrics of this patriotic American song were written by Samuel F. Smith and set to the melody of God Save the Queen, the anthem of the United Kingdom. Let Freedom Ring, an arrangement of My Country ‘tis of Thee, was penned as part of an audition for U.S. Marine Band staff arranger by SSgt. Ryan Nowlin and was performed by the Marine Band on January 21, 2013, at the second inaugural of President Barack Obama.
Drawing his inspiration for this piece directly from Smith’s patriotic words, Nowlin says his “simplistic treatment of the theme is to portray a deep reverence.” Shining through the texture on numerous occasions, great emphasis is placed on the lyrics, “land where my fathers died,” a strong reminder that America would not be what it is were it not for the sacrifices of those who have gone before us.
- Program Note by the United States Marine Band
About the composer:
Ryan Nowlin (b. 1978, Parma, Ohio) is an American composer, arranger and conductor.
Lt. Col. Nowlin holds both a B.M. in music education and an M.M. in music education and conducting from Bowling Green State University, where he studied horn with Herbert Spencer, Jr. and conducting with Bruce Moss and Emily Freeman Brown. He has also studied composition with prolific composer Anne McGinty, and has participated in workshops and master classes with several renowned conductors and educators including H Robert Reynolds, Mallory Thompson, Col. Arnald Gabriel, Harry Begian, and Frederick Fennell.
Nowlin taught instrumental music at the high school level in Ohio for ten years before joining “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band in August 2010 as staff arranger. He was appointed Assistant Director and commissioned a first lieutenant in July 2014, was promoted to the rank of captain in July 2016, was appointed Executive Officer and Associate Director in May 2018, and earned the rank of Major in January 2020. He was promoted to his current rank in December 2023. On Dec. 20, 2023, during a Change of Command Ceremony officiated by Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps General Christopher J. Mahoney, Lt. Col. Nowlin became the 29th Director of "The President's Own" United States Marine Band. As director, Nowlin oversees the Marine Band's educational outreach initiatives such as Music in the Schools, Music in the High Schools, Tour Educational Outreach, and the Concerto Competition for High School Musicians, and has been involved in the Marine Band’s Young People’s Concerts since 2011.
With “The President’s Own,” Nowlin has arranged and composed a variety of music for the Marine Band, Marine Chamber Orchestra, brass ensembles, and various small ensembles. He has written arrangements for an array of guest artists for national events, including a 2013 collaboration with Kelly Clarkson (America) and Beyoncé (The Star-Spangled Banner) for the second inauguration of President Barack Obama. In 2013, Lt. Col. Nowlin composed the concert march Montford Point Marines honoring the first African Americans to serve in the United States Marine Corps, and in 2018 he wrote the march Century of Service in honor of 100 years of women’s service in the Corps. Lt. Col. Nowlin’s music has been heard in performance at numerous White House events, including receptions, state dinners, and President Trump’s televised Fourth of July South Lawn celebration. His wind band transcriptions have been recorded on four Marine Band albums.
Lt. Col. Nowlin is co-author of the band director method book Tradition of Excellence, textbook Teaching Band with Excellence, and music theory series Excellence in Theory. He has received numerous awards including the James Paul Kennedy Music Achievement Award, the Mark and Helen Kelly Band Award, and the BGSU Faculty Excellence Award.
In addition to his duties with the United States Marine Band, Lt. Col. Nowlin frequently appears as a guest conductor with high school honor bands, community and municipal bands, and with university ensembles across the country. His published music and methods are used in lessons and performances around the globe, and he can frequently be found providing clinics and master classes to student musicians in classrooms around the country.
He is a member of Pi Kappa Lambda, MENC, ASCAP, and the International Horn Society. He also holds honorary memberships in Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, Kappa Kappa Psi, and Tau Beta Sigma.
Symphony for Band
Vincent Persichetti
About the piece:
The Symphony for Band was commissioned and premiered by Clark Mitze and the Washington University Band at the MENC Convention in St. Louis on April 16, 1956. According to the composer, it could have been titled Symphony for Winds, following, as it did, his Symphony No. 5 for Strings. Persichetti, however, did not wish to avoid the word “band,” which he felt no longer had the connotation of a poor quality of music. In the autumn 1964 Journal of Band Research, he wrote, “Band music is virtually the only kind of music in America today (outside of the ‘pop’ field) which can be introduced, accepted, put to immediate and wide use, and become a staple of the literature in a short time.” According to Jeffrey Renshaw, “The Symphony for Band ... was in many ways such a departure from the established concepts of band works that it influenced the attitudes of generations of composers.”
The four movements (Adagio allegro, Adagio sostenuto, Allegretto, and Vivace) have forms with traditional implications. The opening horn call and a following scale-wise passage in the slow introduction become the two principal themes (in reverse order) in the subsequent Allegro. The standard exposition, development, and recapitulation of sonata form are the Allegro, although the traditional key relationships are not completely retained. The slow second movement is based on Round Me Falls the Night, from the composer’s Hymns and Responses for the Church Year. The third movement, in trio form, serves as the traditional dance movement and is followed by a finale in free rondo form, which draws the thematic material from the preceding movements and concludes with a chord containing all 12 tones of the scale.
- Program Note from San Luis Obispo Wind Orchestra concert program, March 2, 2010
About the composer:
Vincent Persichetti (6 June 1915, Philadelphia, Penn. – 14 August 1987, Philadelphia) was an American composer, music educator and pianist.
Persichetti began his musical life at a young age, first studying the piano, then the organ, double bass, tuba, theory, and composition. By the age of 11 he was paying for his own musical education and helping by performing professionally as an accompanist, radio staff pianist, church organist, and orchestra performer. At the age of 16 he was appointed choir director for the Arch Street Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, a post he would hold for the next 20 years. During all of this, Persichetti was a student in the Philadelphia public schools and received a thorough musical education at the Combs College of Music, where he earned a degree in 1935 under Russel King Miller, his principal composition teacher.
Starting at the age of 20, he was simultaneously head of the theory and composition departments at the Combs College, a conducting major with Fritz Reiner at the Curtis Institute, and a piano major with Olga Samaroff at the Philadelphia Conservatory. He received a diploma in conducting from the Curtis Institute and graduate degrees from the Philadelphia Conservatory. In 1947 he joined the faculty of the Juilliard School of Music, and became the chairman of the Composition Department in 1963.
Persichetti composed for nearly every musical medium, with more than 120 published works. Although he never specifically composed "educational" music, many of his smaller pieces are suitable for teaching purposes. His piano music, a complete body of literature in itself, consists of six sonatinas, three volumes of poems, a concerto and a concertino for piano and orchestra, serenades, a four-hand concerto, a two-piano sonata, twelve solo piano sonatas, and various shorter works. His works for winds rank as some of the most original and well-crafted compositions in the medium, and his Symphony No. 6 is rightly considered one of the "cornerstones" of the genre.
Big City Lights
Marie A. Douglas
About the piece:
Big City Lights is a piece for wind band, inspired by the hip-hop subgenre "trap music", which finds its roots in the composer's home town, Atlanta, Georgia. The atonal piece has an electronic accompaniment aspect as well. There are musical elements that are meant to imitate techniques which are commonly utilized during the production of music within the genre. For example, in general the timpani performs what are intended to be "808s," while the tuba is often performing lines that would be reserved for synthesized bass; the combination creates an often utilized distortion technique.
Other production tactics travel through the ensemble as well. Certain aspects of the orchestration are imitating automation, which place sound exclusively in different spots of the ensemble (specifically on the left or right of the conductor) Sudden and gradual ensemble crescendos are dovetailing of melodies imitate low and high pass filters and volume knobs. Additionally, the piece aims to give the performers and audience a peek into a day in the life of an Atlanta resident.
The piece begins with the high-paced "It's Lit!" section which includes fortissimo exclamations occurring throughout the ensemble, demonstrating the hustle and bustle of the famed Atlanta traffic. The traffic sounds perform a trio with the clarinets and marimba, who depict a sense of "hurry and wait" as they endure the Atlanta traffic scene. The "Issa Vibe" section is much slower and intends to depict a night out on the town with friends, enjoying the city lights and the slightly slower paced environment.
For a short period, we return to "It's Lit!", followed by "Chopped and Screwed," which is a halftime recapitulation of the main themes. "Chopped and Screwed" is a famous DJ style which a song is slowed down tremendously. The piece closes out with one final return to the original marking of "It's Lit!" Enjoy a day in the life of an "AtLien" with Big City Lights!
- Program Notes from score
About the composer:
Marie A. Douglas (b. 1987) is an American hornist, educator, arranger, and composer.
Douglas received her undergraduate degree in music with a concentration in French horn performance from Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University. She holds graduate degrees in internet marketing from Full Sail University, and music technology and performance from Southern Utah University.
Douglas performs with the Cobb Wind Symphony, and is an adjunct professor of music theory and music history at Southern Utah University. In addition, she serves as chief arranger for high school band programs across the southeastern United States.
She currently [2024] serves as the director of bands and music technology at Tucker High School in Dekalb County, Georgia.
Douglas is one of eight founding members of the Nu Black Vanguard, a composers collective dedicated to the promotion and advancement of Black composers in the medium of music; the other seven founding members are Kevin Day, Katahj Copley, Benjamin Horne, Kelijah Dunton, JaRod Hall, Dayla D. Spencer, and Adrian B. Sims.
Only Light
Aaron Perrine
About the piece:
The melodic material for Only Light originally came from Beneath a Canvas of Green, a recently composed large-scale work of mine written for wind ensemble. At the time, I was not quite comfortable with how this music fit within the larger work (it passed by much too quickly), and I knew it was something I would eventually like to revisit.
In the fall of 2012, one of my best friend’s mother lost her battle with cancer. A year later, while thinking of ideas for what was eventually to be Only Light, I found myself thinking of him and his family quite often. At about this same time, I was on social media late one night -- procrastinating rather than composing -- and discovered a post written by another friend, written in reference to his wife. Here is an excerpt:
A timeline. Oh, the dark places I've dwelt this morning. The "hows," "what ifs," and "whys" pouring over me. But, I digress. There is no timeline at this time. There is only, "we aren't done with you yet." There is, "we've got more things to try." There is, in a word, hope. I need me some of that. Toni has pointed out that there are times that I can find the dark cloud behind any silver lining. (Had you only known me before I met you, young lady. Now that Tim could really find darkness where there was only light.) The medical team is set to battle on.
In an instant, I was reminded of how delicate life is and how things can change at a moment’s notice. Reflecting upon these events inspired me to expand upon and ultimately finish this previously composed music. Only Light is meant to convey a sense of hope and healing.
- Program Note by composer
About the composer:
Aaron Perrine (pronounced per-EEN) (b. 1979, McGregor, Minnesota) is an American composer.
Dr. Perrine earned his Bachelor's Degree in trombone performance and music education with high distinction from the University of Minnesota, Morris, in 2002. While an undergraduate, he received the Edna Murphy Morrison Award, Daisy Hansen Award, Chancellor's Award, and multiple awards in composition from the Minnesota Music Educators Association.
After his time in Morris, Dr. Perrine moved to Minneapolis and began working on his Master's Degree. While at the University of Minnesota, Aaron studied composition with Judith Zaimont and jazz arranging with Dean Sorenson. He completed his Master's degree in 2006, and his Ph.D. in composition from the University of Iowa, studying with David Gompper and Lawrence Fritts. He is assistant professor of music at Cornell College, Mt. Vernon, Iowa.
Dr. Perrine has been commissioned and recorded by various colleges, high schools and middle schools across the country. One of his compositions, April, was a finalist in the first Frank Ticheli Composition Contest. This piece was also a J.W. Pepper "Editors' Choice" and was a featured composition in Teaching Music Through Performance in Band, Volume 7. Both his 2011 composition Pale Blue on Deep and his 2014 composition Only Light were awarded the prestigious ABA Sousa/Ostwald Prize.
Danzon No. 2
Arturo Márquez
Transcribed by Oliver Nickel
About the piece:
The idea of writing the Danzón No. 2 originated in 1993 during a trip to Malinalco with the painter Andrés Fonseca and the dancer Irene Martínez, both of whom are experts in salon dances with a special passion for the danzón, which they were able to transmit to me from the beginning, and also during later trips to Veracruz and visits to the Colonia Salon in Mexico City. From these experiences onward, I started to learn the danzón’s rhythms, its form, its melodic outline, and to listen to the old recordings by Acerina and his Danzonera Orchestra. I was fascinated and I started to understand that the apparent lightness of the danzón is only like a visiting card for a type of music full of sensuality and qualitative seriousness, a genre which old Mexican people continue to dance with a touch of nostalgia and a jubilant escape towards their own emotional world; we can fortunately still see this in the embrace between music and dance that occurs in the state of Veracruz and in the dance parlors of Mexico City.
The Danzón No. 2 is a tribute to the environment that nourishes the genre. It endeavors to get as close as possible to the dance, to its nostalgic melodies, to its wild rhythms, and although it violates its intimacy, its form and its harmonic language, it is a very personal way of paying my respects and expressing my emotions towards truly popular music. Danzón No. 2 was written on a commission by the Department of Musical Activities at Mexico’s National Autonomous University and is dedicated to my daughter Lily.
- Program Note by composer
About the composer:
Arturo Márquez (b. 20 December 1950, Alamos, Sonora, Mexico) is a Mexican composer.
He began his musical training in La Puente, California, in 1966, later studying piano and music theory at the Conservatory of Music of Mexico and composition at the Taller de Composición of the Institute of Fine Arts of Mexico with such composers as Joaquín Gutiérrez Heras, Hector Quintanar, and Federico Ibarra. He also studied in Paris privately with Jacques Castérède, and at the California Institute of the Arts with Morton Subotnick, Stephen Mosko, Mel Powell, and James Newton.
In recent years, Marquez has written a series of danzones, works based on an elegant Cuban dance that migrated to Veracruz, Mexico. His Danzon No. 2 is among the most popular Latin American works to emerge since the 1950s, enhanced by its use by Gustavo Dudamel with the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra in their 2007 tour of the United States and Europe. In February 2006, Arturo Marquez received the Medalla de Oro de Bellas Artes (Gold Medal of Fine Arts), the highest honor given to artists by Mexico’s Bellas Artes. That evening the concert El Danzon según Márquez (The Danzón according to Márquez) was presented at the Palacio de Bellas Artes. The concert included six danzons, all contained on a forthcoming CD.
Márquez has received commissions from the OAS, the Universidad Metropolitana de Mexico, the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, Festival Cervantino, Festival del Caribe, Festival de la Ciudad de Mexico, and the Rockefeller Foundation. He has received grants from the Institute of Fine Arts of Mexico, the French government, and the Fulbright Foundation. In 1994 he received the composition scholarship of Mexico’s Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes. Márquez’s Octeto Malandro (Misbehaving Octet) was commissioned and premiered by Philadelphia’s Relâche Ensemble in 1996, and subsequently recorded by Relâche for Monroe St. Records. Márquez’s flute concerto, commissioned by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Consejo Nacional para las Artes, was premiered by James Newton. Other works by Márquez include En Clave for piano, Son a Tamayo for harp, percussion, and tape (featured at the 1996 World Harp Congress),Homenaje a Gismonti for string quartet, and Zarabandeo for clarinet and piano.
Sound and Smoke
Viet Cuong
I. (feudal castle lights)
About the piece:
Both the title and concept of Sound and Smoke were derived from a line from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s play Faust, when Faust equates words to “mere sound and smoke” and declares that “feeling is everything.” Each of the two movements has been given an abstract, parenthetical title to further incorporate Goethe’s conjecture that words will never be able to fully express what feelings and, in this case, music can. Therefore, these titles serve merely as starting points for personal interpretation and should not interfere with the music itself.
The first movement, (feudal castle lights), blurs the many different timbres of the ensemble to create a resonant and slowly “smoldering” effect. Because reverb is essentially built into the orchestration, harmonies must shift using common tones and are always built upon the notes preceding them. The second and final movement, (avalanche of eyes), opens with an alternating unison-note brass fanfare that is then spun out into a fast-paced toccata. Suspense and excitement are created as the spotlight moves quickly between the various colors of the ensemble and the fanfare is transformed.
The original concept of “sound and smoke” unifies these two otherwise dissimilar movements; oftentimes ideas are presented and then promptly left behind or transformed. Musical events therefore appear and dissipate as quickly as sound and smoke.
- Program Note by composer
About the composer:
Viet Cuong (b. 1990, West Hills, Calif.) is an American composer.
Viet holds the Curtis Institute of Music’s Daniel W. Dietrich II Composition Fellowship as an Artist Diploma student of David Ludwig and Jennifer Higdon. Viet received his MFA from Princeton University as a Naumburg and Roger Sessions Fellow, and he finished his Ph.D. there in 2021. At Princeton he studied with Steven Mackey, Donnacha Dennehy, Dan Trueman, Dmitri Tymoczko, Paul Lansky, and Louis Andriessen. Viet holds Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University, where he studied with Pulitzer Prize-winner Kevin Puts and Oscar Bettison.
While at Peabody, Viet received the Peabody Alumni Award (the Valedictorian honor) and the Gustav Klemm Award for excellence in composition. Viet has been a fellow at the Mizzou International Composers Festival, Eighth Blackbird Creative Lab, Cabrillo Festival’s Young Composer Workshop, Copland House’s CULTIVATE emerging composers workshop, and was also a scholarship student at the Aspen, Bowdoin, and Lake Champlain music festivals. Additionally, he has received artist residencies from Yaddo, Copland House, Ucross Foundation, and Atlantic Center for the Arts (under Melinda Wagner, 2012 and Christopher Theofanidis, 2014).
Viet Cuong's music has been performed on six continents by musicians and ensembles such as Sō Percussion, Eighth Blackbird, Alarm Will Sound, Sandbox Percussion, the PRISM Quartet, JACK Quartet, Gregory Oakes, Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra, Albany Symphony, Jacksonville Symphony, and Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, among many others. Viet’s music has been featured in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, Aspen Music Festival, New Music Gathering, Boston GuitarFest, International Double Reed Society Conference, US Navy Band International Saxophone Symposium, and on American Public Radio’s Performance Today. He also enjoys composing for the wind ensemble medium, and his works for winds have amassed over one hundred performances by conservatory and university ensembles worldwide, including at Midwest, WASBE, and CBDNA conferences.
Viet is a recipient of the Barlow Endowment Commission, Copland House Residency Award, ASCAP Morton Gould Composers Award, Suzanne and Lee Ettelson Composers Award, Theodore Presser Foundation Music Award, Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra Call for Scores, Cortona Prize, New York Youth Symphony First Music Commission, Boston GuitarFest Composition Competition, and Walter Beeler Memorial Prize, among others. In addition, he received honorable mentions in the Harvey Gaul Composition Competition and two consecutive ASCAP/CBDNA Frederick Fennell Prizes. Scholarships include the Evergreen House Foundation scholarship at Peabody, a 2010 Susan and Ford Schumann Merit Scholarship from the Aspen Music Festival and School, and the 2011 Bachrach Memorial Gift from the Bowdoin International Music Festival.
Viet is a member of BMI, the American Composers Forum, and the Blue Dot Collective, a group of composers who focus on writing adventurous new music for wind band. In 2020-2021, he was composer-in-residence at Kennesaw State University, Georgia. In 2024, he became one of the youngest members ever to be elected to the prestigious American Bandmasters Association.
The Corcoran Cadets
John Philip Sousa
About the piece:
The Corcoran Cadets drill team was the pet of Washington, D.C., being the most notable of the drill teams that flourished there after the Civil War. Their average age was 16, and they presented a snappy picture with their colorful uniforms, wooden rifles, and youthful enthusiasm. They competed vigorously with units from Washington and other towns, and were the first company of cadets to be mustered into the National Guard. Their esprit de corps was high, and the Corcoran Cadets Veterans' Association held annual reunions for many years.
The "Corcorans" had their own band. Although it is not recorded, they probably made a formal request for this march. Sousa's affirmative response, "to the officers and men of the Corcoran Cadets," was no doubt tendered by an early association with William W. Corcoran, for whom the Cadets were named. It was he who nearly changed American musical history by considering Sousa for a musical education in Europe. Sousa had declined this opportunity, and the march was probably a belated expression of appreciation.
- Program Note from John Philip Sousa: A Descriptive Catalog of His Works
About the composer:
John Philip Sousa (6 November 1854, Washington, D.C. – 6 March 1932, Reading, Pennsylvania) was America's best known composer and conductor during his lifetime. Highly regarded for his military band marches, Sousa is often called the "The March King" or "American March King".
Sousa was born the third of 10 children of John Antonio Sousa (born in Spain of Portuguese parents) and Maria Elisabeth Trinkhaus (born in Bavaria). His father played trombone in the U.S. Marine band, so young John grew up around military band music. Sousa started his music education, playing the violin, as a pupil of John Esputa Jr. and G. F. Benkert for harmony and musical composition at the age of six. He was found to have absolute pitch. When Sousa reached the age of 13, his father enlisted him as as an apprentice of the United States Marine Corps. Sousa served his apprenticeship for seven years, until 1875, and apparently learned to play all the wind instruments while also continuing with the violin.
Several years later, Sousa left his apprenticeship to join a theatrical (pit) orchestra where he learned to conduct. He returned to the U.S. Marine Band as its head in 1880, and remained as its conductor until 1892. He organized his own band the year he left the Marine Band. The Sousa Band toured 1892-1931, performing 15,623 concerts in America and abroad. In 1900, his band represented the United States at the Paris Exposition before touring Europe. In Paris, the Sousa Band marched through the streets including the Champs-Élysées to the Arc de Triomphe – one of only eight parades the band marched in over its forty years. Sousa died at the age of 77 on March 6th, 1932 after conducting a rehearsal of the Ringgold Band in Reading, Pennsylvania. The last piece he conducted was "The Stars and Stripes Forever", his most famous work and the US's national march.
Sousa wrote 136 independent marches, while a host of other marches and dances have been adapted from his stage works. Despite the genre's relatively limited structure, Sousa's marches are highly varied in character. The vast majority are in the quickstep dance style and a third of their titles bear military designations. His earlier marches are best suited for actual marching, while later works are increasingly complex. He also wrote school songs for several American Universities, including Kansas State University, Marquette University, the University of Michigan, and the University of Minnesota.
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