Thom Ritter George

WESTERN OVERTURE, CN 229 (1966)

Program Notes

Thom Ritter George wrote WESTERN OVERTURE in Spring 1966. At the time, Dr. George was working as composer/arranger of the United States Navy Band in Washington, D.C.

WESTERN OVERTURE was inspired by the sights and sounds of a trip the composer made to Kansas in 1964. The themes and rhythms of the music reflect the openness and lively qualities of the American West, and certainly the composer had before him images of cowboys, horses, cattle, and Western lands when writing the score.

The music is scored for large band and is written in a fast "Allegro" tempo. The middle section of the overture has a hymnlike quality and is followed by a return of the main themes. The ending, or "Coda," is a brilliant scoring of the hymn theme for full band with rhythmic comments from the percussion section.

(TRGcm:1992.07.25)