Adoration, for brass quintet
Instrumentation: brass quintet (2 trumpets, horn, trombone, tuba)
Year Composed: 2022
Duration: 3’
Originally composed for organ by Florence B. Price
Premiered April 2022
Program Notes:
Adoration (1951) by Florence Price is a piece originally written for organ that I arranged for tuba-euphonium quartet, horn quartet, and brass quintet. This piece features a sweet melody reminiscent of truly adoring something and transports the listener to those fond memories. In the middle, there is a brief section with minor tonality that portrays the conflict that can sometimes occur in love, but the original melody returns as things will almost always resolve in the end.
Total Praise, for brass quintet
Instrumentation: brass quintet (2 trumpets, horn, trombone, tuba)
Year Composed: 2022
Originally composed for Gospel choir by Kirk Franklin
Premiered April 2022
Program Notes:
Total Praise is a Gospel standard composed by Richard Smallwood. This arrangement uses brass to match some of the magnificence of hearing a full choir and band perform the work.
Spiritual Medley No. 2, for tuba-euphonium quartet
Instrumentation: tuba euphonium quartet (euphonium 1-2, tuba 1-2)
Year Composed: 2020
Includes “I Want Jesus to Walk with Me,” “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child,” and “Steal Away”
Originally by “traditional”
Premiered August 2020 (virtual) by Black All-Star Tuba Euphonium Quartet. Premiered February 2022 (live) by Peabody Tuba-Euphonium Quartet.
Program Notes:
Spiritual Arrangement 2, written in summer 2020, incorporates three of my favorite spirituals: “I Want Jesus to Walk with Me,” “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child,” and “Steal Away.” Spirituals are songs created by African American slaves and passed down by rote. “I Want Jesus to Walk with Me” tells the story of the speaker crying out for the support of the Lord during difficult times. This arrangement opens up with a solo voice playing the melody over drones. As the melody continues, the accompaniment gets more active and supportive until all the voices end playing in octaves, symbolizing a level of camaraderie. “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” is about the sorrow in being away from your home—the way the African American slaves were taken from their motherlands and often brought away from family through the American slave trade. This arrangement utilizes dissonance to convey the turmoil and the weight of the sadness. It ends with the tuba-euphonium pairs repeating the line “a long way from home.” The first uses extreme octaves between both instruments to present the distance between the speaker and their home, and the second uses closer octaves, ending on a unison, to present that there is no hope for a return home and they must accept where they are. “Steal Away” has an entirely different character from the first two songs. This song presents a story of the speaker “stealing away” to Jesus. While the story sounds as if it is more positive, finding “Jesus” and “home” can be viewed as symbolizing death. This arrangement captures the seemingly lighter character by using a blues style, but it ends by slowing down and fading to silence.
Adoration, for tuba-euphonium quartet
Instrumentation: tuba euphonium quartet (euphonium 1-2, tuba 1-2)
Year Composed: 2020
Duration: 3’
Originally composed for organ by Florence B. Price
Premiered May 2020 (virtual) by self multi-track video. Premiered October 2020 (live) by Arizona State Graduate Tuba-Euph Quartet.
Program Notes:
Adoration (1951) by Florence Price is a piece originally written for organ that I arranged for tuba-euphonium quartet, horn quartet, and brass quintet. This piece features a sweet melody reminiscent of truly adoring something and transports the listener to those fond memories. In the middle, there is a brief section with minor tonality that portrays the conflict that can sometimes occur in love, but the original melody returns as things will almost always resolve in the end.
In the Bottoms Suite, for tuba-euphonium octet
Instrumentation: tuba euphonium octet (euphonium 1-4, tuba 1-4)
Year Composed: 2020
Duration: 13’30”
Movements:
I. Prelude: Night
II. His Song
IV. Barcarolle: Morning
V. Dance: Juba
Originally composed for piano by R. Nathaniel Dett
Premiered June-August 2020 (virtual) by the COVID-19 Black All Star Ensemble. Premiered April 2021 (live) by Appalachian State Tuba-Euphonium Ensemble.
Program Notes:
When I heard this piece, I was fascinated by its orchestrational potential. The nearly complete suite transferred to tuba-euphonium ensemble quite well, given the versatility and range ability of the ensemble. In addition to Dett’s own program notes, I would like to highlight the following: The second movement utilizes some liberties in arranging rather than transcribing. The fourth movement is essentially a virtuosic solo-euphonium feature. At this time, I do not have an existing arrangement of movement 3 (Honey) but can arrange it if there is demand.
Lift Every Voice and Sing, for tuba-euphonium octet
Instrumentation: tuba euphonium octet (euphonium 1-4, tuba 1-4)
Year Composed: 2020
Duration: 3’
Premiered September 2020 (virtual) by the COVID-19 Black All-Star Ensemble
Program Notes:
Lift Every Voice and Sing is considered the American Black National Anthem. It was originally composed by J. Rosamond Johnson and the lyrics written by James Weldon Johnson. This arrangement was written as the finale for my COVID-19 Black All-Star Ensemble project during the summer of 2020 (June-October). In its virtual premiere, it featured over 25 Black tuba and euphonium players around the US. The arrangement includes elements of fanfare to set up the anthem and features different sections of the ensemble.
Midnight Escape, for trumpet sextet
Instrumentation: trumpet sextet
Year Composed: 2023
Duration: 4’14”
Available on Palisade Trumpet Collective album, Sojourn (released March 15, 2024) - Mark Records
Program Notes:
Commissioned by the Palisade Trumpet Collective, the piece Midnight Escape was composed in February 2023. In the piece, elements of fanfare and fugue combine to follow a character’s escape. It opens with a call, like alarm bells, signaling the beginning of the journey. Then, the rhythmic accompaniment simulates the steadiness of running. In the middle, the energy slows, symbolizing the character’s inner turmoil as tiredness sets in. However, the character regains the energy to power through and resume running until they reach safety.
In Daddy’s Shoes, for chamber duo
Instrumentation: soprano saxophone and tuba or tuba and euphonium
Year Composed: 2021
Premiered April 2021 by Jazzie Pigott and Kaylee Bernard
Program Notes:
My father, Gregson H. Pigott, has been my musical role model from an early age. Growing up, I watched him excell as a church musician playing sax, flute, clarinet, piano, and singing his heart out. Out of the many instruments he does play, I have specifically admired the rich tone he gets on the soprano sax, his usual instrument of choice. Now, I want to clarify that my father is not dead, rather, I wrote this for my Master’s recital to signify the impact he had on me in my path. I followed in his footsteps until I was strong enough to go on my own, demonstrated by the echoing melodies throughout. Included in the middle of the piece is a quote from one of the pieces my dad wrote and recorded back in his earlier days.
I adapted this work for tuba and euphonium in 2023 to perform it with my husband, Andre Thacker, in our Dre-Z Duo. Both versions are available for purchase.
Quarantine(r) March, for brass quintet
Instrumentation: brass quintet (2 trumpets, horn, trombone, tuba)
Year Composed: 2021
Duration: 2’46”
Premiered February 2022 by the Charm Brass Quintet
Program Notes:
Quarantine(r) March is a march I wrote at the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020. The title gives a nod to the popular march “Florentiner March” by Julius Fucik. Originally written for a full wind band, this work explores the different moods that most people experienced surrounding the beginning of the pandemic. It conveys the early joy when things were first canceled, the boredom experienced after a few weeks in isolation, the frustration felt after realizing it was nowhere near over, and the inner-turmoil of trying to balance all of these emotions. When I adapted the work for brass quintet, I placed the final piccolo solo in the tuba part to allude to my community band’s longstanding tradition of having the tuba section play the piccolo solo in John Philip Sousa’s the Stars and Stripes Forever.
Against All Odds, for brass ensemble
Instrumentation: brass ensemble (3 trumpets, 4 horns, 2 trombones, bass trombone, euphonium, tuba)
Year Composed: 2021
Duration: 2’45”
Premiered April 2021 (virtual) by the Chromatic Brass Collective. Premiered May 2022 (live) by the Chromatic Brass Collective
Program Notes:
Against All Odds is a brass ensemble work, originally written for the Chromatic Brass Collective (a group I co-founded for womxn of color brass players). The long story short of the title is that I was told by a professor that this was “not a fanfare” because it doesn’t utilize traditional fanfare elements all around. I continued to write it and present it as a fanfare regardless. This experience seemed an example of being undermined by the systems stacked against those with marginalized identities. Despite being met with disapproval, I continued and succeeded in writing this piece. Against all odds, we are here. This work was premiered in CBC’s inaugural live performance at the 2022 International Women’s Brass Conference.