Composer, primarily of symphonic and
wind ensemble music;
percussionist;
Extremely
prolific in the last half of the
20th century David Maslanka finally broke into the academic world of wind band
composing in the late eighties and early nineties, garnering critical acclaim after having spent several years writing in
a lonely obscurity and working as a music copyist in
Missoula, Montana.
His first
academically well received work was
Rollo Takes A Walk, a suite for
wind band with
comic themes and
undertones.
After several more successes, Ray Lichtenwalter,
a long time friend of Maslanka's, was
struck by tragedy: his wife began to die of
cancer. Lichtenwalter lives in Arlington, Texas where he is
a professor of music and musical director for the
Texas Wind Symphony. Maslanka, not knowing how else to help his friend, went to him and stayed with him throughout the tough time.
From this experience Maslanka wrote
Symphony #2: Golden Light, a truly
amazing piece in its depth and expressiveness.
Maslanka continued a few years later with his
Symphony #4 In One Movement, quite possibly one of
the most incredible pieces for wind ensemble ever written. The piece weeps with
innovations in harmony, orchestration, and
individual instrumental tone manipulation.
In 1998, Maslanka became the first composer to have a piece premiered by
streaming audio and video over the internet. Nine schools (including
U of Arizona,
U of North Texas,
U of Indiana at Bloomington, among others) premiered simultaneously on
April 10th at 8:00 pm CST. The piece,
Sea Dreams, is
a concerto for two horns; the composition was inspired by (but not about)
visions the composer received during meditations.
In the composition field of music, most composers are
real assholes. Everyone is so
jealously guarded about their successes and failures that young composers can't get
a word of advice from most of them. Mr. Maslanka is not like this, however; through an unbelievable series of events I was able to send him a copy of the score of
my first symphony and a tape of the premiere. He wrote me a nice letter saying I was talented and then extremely constructively
ripped my piece apart (and believe me, it needed it.) He even took the time to notate my score with the examples he was speaking of. He's truly a great composer, and hes actually available on
Napster and
Scour-type networks.
My
personal recommendation is to get
Symphony #4 in one movement.