This book provides an extensive resource on the life and works of Warren Benson. His music is created out of such depth of experience that one can only understand and fully appreciate it through a more astute understanding of the man.

This is a five-volume series on major contemporary composers and their works for wind band. Included in this initial volume are rare, behind-the-notes perspectives acquired from personal interviews with each composer. An excellent resource for conductors, composers or enthusiasts interested in acquiring a richer musical understanding of the composers' training, compositional approach, musical influences and interpretative ideas. Features the music of: Timothy Broege, Michael Colgrass, Michael Daugherty, David Gillingham, John Harbison, Karel Husa, Alfred Reed and others.

Composers in the Classroom is a bio-bibliographical dictionary, chronicling the careers and work of over 120 composers associated with conservatories, colleges, and universities in the United States and Puerto Rico. Scholars and students of music seeking critical information about composers who have taken on the mantle of instruction will find a wealth of detail on their subjects. Painstakingly obtained through direct correspondence with the composers themselves, Floyd includes within each entry a short biography of the composer's life and education, lists of previous positions, most prominent commissions, awards and honors, and notable performers of the subject's work. Each entry also contains a discography of the recordings and a bibliography of writings by the composer. Researchers will find especially useful the organization of each subject's compositions by a variety of types. These include vocal, choral/assembly, dramatic, keyboard, solo instrument, handbells, chamber music, jazz ensemble, band and wind ensemble, band and wind ensemble with solo instruments, orchestra, orchestra with solo instruments, film/television/commercial, electro-acoustic and multimedia, arrangements, transcriptions, and editions and reconstructions. Music scholars will find under each work not only the title and date of composition but also the date of revision, commission, and dedication information, as well as other pertinent details ranging from the names of collaborators to alternate titles under which works may circulate. Composers in the Classroom is an indispensable tool to scholars of modern music seeking to research the current state of musical composition and the compositional trends of the 21st century.

The book provides a historical survey of the wind band’s music and denotes how historical and cultural developments have influenced it over the course of time. Although the modern wind band developed first in the 19th century, it has its roots in the wind music of ancient times, and music survives that has been composed since the Middle Ages. Therefore, this book covers the music from that time to the present, including the dance music of the Renaissance, the Harmoniemusik of the Classical Period, and the nationalistic music of the Romantic Period, as well as the major wind band repertoire developed after 1900.

(Meredith Music Resource). This sourcebook was created to aid directors and teachers in finding the information they need and expand their general knowledge. The resources were selected from hundreds of published and on-line sources found in journals, magazines, music company catalogs and publications, numerous websites, doctoral dissertations, graduate theses, encyclopedias, various databases, and a great many books. Information was also solicited from outstanding college/university/school wind band directors and instrumental teachers. The information is arranged in four sections: Section 1 General Resources About Music Section 2 Specific Resources Section 3 Use of Literature Section 4 Library Staffing and Management

For the past decade, Fiske (music, U. of Western Ontario) has been using neural network models to test his theory that musical thinking can be described as a hierarchy of progressively more intricate pattern-comparison activity, and that the resulting musical realizations are limited to only three cognitive category types. He describes the development of his theory, several related experimental studies, and the neural network models he uses to test the theory. Neural network methodology can seem daunting, he admits, so he has tried to keep technical descriptions to a minimum in order to highlight his main goal: to describe and test a set of principles that appear to represent the foundation of musical understanding. Annotation : 2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).