Summer Skies for Band [Alf:36-B362799]

Leroy Anderson completed four works in 1953: SONG OF THE BELLS, SUMMER SKIES, THE GIRL IN SATIN, and CONCERTO IN C FOR PIANO AND ORCHESDTRA. He commissioned a modern home for himself and his family on Grassy Hill in Woodbury, Connecticut. He was Guest Conductor in concerts at the University of Michigan, at Grant Park in Chicago, Illinois, Fort Wayne, Indiana, Cleveland, Ohio, Worcester and Boston, Massachusetts and Fairfield University, Connecticut. The Connecticut concert attracted a record-setting 8,500 people in the audience. While THE GIRL IN SATIN is in a Latin style, similar to SERENATA, and SONG OF THE BELLS is a waltz, SUMMER SKIES is much less descriptive than the other works he completed in 1953. SUMMER SKIES evokes a softer, enigmatic mood, somewhat like his 1962 work BALLADETTE. - Program note from Leroy Anderson's website. This edition for band was transcribed from the composer's original score by Floyd E. Werle, the long-serving chief arranger for the U.S. Air Force Band beginning in 1951.