Fanfare for
Innovators is a short musical flourish for brass choir and percussion.
Fanfares typically use incisive rhythms, repeated notes and triads (chord built of
thirds, as c-e-g). The fanfare was originally used for signal purposes in battles,
hunts and court ceremonies; today it is often used for ceremonial events involving
important people, as exclamations of significant activities or to precede
announcements with the purpose of gaining the attention of the audience.
I wrote the composition to celebrate those that create new ideas or ways of doing
things; those that blaze a trail into new territory—in other words,
innovators.
The composition uses the augmented scale (Bb C# D F F# A) throughout in order to
maximize the use of major, minor and augmented triads—harmonies which perhaps
symbolize the stasis, failures and breakthroughs of ideas that all innovators
experience.
