Marilyn Taft Thomas' work "Snapshots of a Great City" will be premiered today by the River City Brass Band as part of the ensemble's ongoing celebration of Pittsburgh's 250th anniversary.
Her composition is part of the band's "Fabulous '50s" program, but, she points out, "The only thing it has to do with the '50s was that was when I was growing up."
She says she was working on a new piece for the band when music director Denis Colwell received a grant that is allowing him to commission a new work for every concert this calendar year.
Thomas is a professor of theory and composition in the school of music at Carnegie Mellon University in Oakland.
"I had started, but I really didn't know where my sketches were going," she says. "When Denis told me he wanted works that were somehow connected to the city, that really clicked.
"Everybody has their own favorite scenes of the city, and I'm offering mine, but I am letting each listener link theirs to the music."
The first movement is "Majestic View of the Skyline," the second is the drifting clouds of "Snowfall at Dawn" and the third is "Jazz in the Park," a look at summer in the city and its outdoor concerts.
The piece is one of three more serious outings in a concert filled will shoo-bop singing and the Andrews Trio, a group that imitates the pop sound of the Andrews Sisters.
Besides the Thomas piece, Colwell tried to supply some variety with Dmitri Shostakovich's 1954 "Festive Overture" and Joseph Wilcox Jenkins' 1956 "American Overture for Band."
As if variety were needed.
"There is such a range of music," Colwell says of the '50s. "At the one end, you have 'Night Train,' and at the other, you have Dave Brubeck's 'Blue Rondo a la Turk.'"
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