Summer 2011 - Cannon School

10 | CANNON MAGAZINE
“Most students never have this privilege during their music education.”
Premiere Performance
Middle School students perform music written especially for them.
By: Katy Rust, Marketing and Communications Coordinator
It’s not every day that middle school musicians play a piece
composed especially for them. In April, Cannon students did
just that.
Brad Davis and Dawn Taylor, Middle School band directors,
wanted to expand their students’ musical education beyond
the classroom. They wanted students in 6th, 7th and 8th grade
bands to work with a composer and chose Mekel Rogers,
also a clinician, adjudicator and music educator from Union
County. With help from a grant made possible by Cannon
Advocates For The Arts (CAFTA), the idea became reality.
“Most students think that all composers are dead,” said Taylor.
“They never have this privilege during their music education.”
Rogers created a special arrangement for Cannon’s
Middle School musicians. He took into consideration the
instrumentation of the band and the age and skill level of the
students when composing the piece. The composition, entitled
“Canticle of the Sun,” is an arrangement of the hymn, “All
Creatures of Our God and King.”
“I’ve always been drawn to that hymn,” said Rogers. “There is a
majestic quality to it that seemed to fit well.”
To add to the experience, Rogers also made a visit to campus
to rehearse with the students. He came away impressed by how
much preparation the students had already put into perfecting
their performance of the piece.
“It was interesting to get a verbal translation of the music
directly from the composer,” said Reid Herrera ’16. “It was
kind of like learning what was going through his head when he
wrote the piece.”
Rogers helped the students balance the treble and bass clef
instruments as they worked to improve their sound.
“It was fantastic rehearsing with the composer because we
could hear what he meant the piece to sound like,” recalled
Claudia Michaels ’17.
Brad Davis was excited to work with a composer on a
commissioned piece for the first time.
Composer Mekel Rogers conducts rehearsing Middle
School musicians.
“I have played tons of them over the course of my career, both
as student and teacher,” said Davis. “You always see the band’s
name at the top of the page and realize that it was written
especially for them; it is cool to think that soon someone
somewhere will think that about us.”
On the night of the Middle School Spring Band Concert,
the students performed the special piece as the grand finale
for a packed Taylor Hall audience. The students’ flawless
performance brought the audience to its feet for a welldeserved
standing ovation.
The commissioned piece will be played by bands
throughout the southeast with the Cannon School name
proudly displayed on the sheet music, and may even be
published internationally.
Students at Cannon are surely going to enjoy performing
“Canticle of the Sun” for years to come.
Go Beyond
Watch the Middle School Band performance of
“Canticle of the Sun” at www.cannonschool.org/canticle.
CANNON MAGAZINE | 11
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