Randall D. Standridge

Brave Spirit

Commissioned by a North Carolina Middle School as part of a cross-curricular multi-cultural school project, this authentic work captures the spirit of Chinese music beautifully with the use of a pentatonic scale, a synthesized mandolin, and solos for flute and piccolo. Brave Spirit begins with a slow introduction featuring a flute/piccolo duet, then launches into a stirring, tom-tom driven fast section. A peaceful middle section featuring the synthesized mandolin sound interjects before the fast melody returns to bring this wonderful Chinese style band work to a stirring conclusion.