Category: chamber

String Quartet

Another sheet music listing, my string quartet. The performance is a very advanced student group from the former East Germany. I thought they did a terrific job on the piece. Frankly, it didn’t think it was possible. They got the savage, aggressive character that I wanted perfectly too! Such passion!

You can listen to all four movements for free at the links below and see the first 5 pages of the score. If you’d like a freebie PDF of the complete thing, drop me a msg.


Shenandoah

Arranged for a chamber mixed ensemble of flute, bassoon or alto saxophone, harp or keyboard, cello or viola, and glockenspiel or celeste. The difficulty level is of the percussion part and string part is very easy, and the difficulty of the harp part (or keyboard) and woodwind part is easy-intermediate. Free streaming of audio & video as well score & parts available purchase at these two sites:

Sonatina for Cello and Piano

I’ve been working at filling out my SheetMusicPlus and SheetMusicDirect listings. Here’s a recent one: Sonatina for Cello and Piano. It’s available at these links:

https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/sonatina-for-cello-piano-digital-sheet-music/22451414
https://www.sheetmusicdirect.com/en-US/se/ID_No/1279280/Product.aspx

At those links you can stream the audio of the complete piece for free and look at the first 5 pages of the score. Of course, the score and any parts are available for purchase and download at a very nominal fee.

Two dear friends, Robert Helps (deceased) and Scott Kluksdahl did a sight-reading run through for this demo recording. I’m so grateful for their willingness to do so.

ST ANNE with descants plus 3 chorale preludes on the tune

The tune name of this famous Hymn is St Anne. The words are equally famous: “O God, Our Help in Ages Past.” Seems like an appropriate text for these days.

This rendition has all 6 verses as found in NCH #25. There’s a very short intro and the first verse begins when the trumpet enters. Hang on to your part because starting in verse 3 the descants begin (there’s 4 verses with descants)!

Here’s a link to three chorale preludes for solo piano I composed a couple years ago that are based on ST ANNE. They’re audio streaming (nothing to download). You can hear the famous melody used in various ways. For instance, in the slow movement, it’s the top notes of the accompaniment.

(To listen to preludes, click on following link, then the “play” button)
https://soundcloud.com/hilton-kean-jones/sets/3-preludes-on-st-anne-for-solo

And…you’re welcome to download the score HERE, for free. Of course, every composer hopes maybe somebody will feel like playing a piece if there’s a free score on offer!

Come, O Spirit, with Your Sound

As part of my job as music director at Lakewood UCC, I write a lot of original music (original hymns, anthems, solo keyboard pieces, hymn-tune settings). Because of the corona virus lockdown, I’ve been doing all those same things, but for online posts by Lakewood. If those interest you, you can hear those posts at https://lakewooducc.org/category/posts/music/.

I’ve decided to post some of those here: the ones that feature original content by me. This post was originally posted on May 27, 2020 at https://lakewooducc.org/2020/05/27/come-o-spirit-with-your-sound/.

Pentecost2This is the second in a series of Pentecost hymn-tune posts. In the New Century Hymnal, it’s #265. The hymn tune is BOUNDLESS MERCY from the Union Harmony, 1837. The harmonization is by Hilton Rufty (1934), but the flute obbligato in the 2nd verse is mine. Copyright restrictions don’t permit a text to sing from, but if you have a NCH there’s a four-bar organ intro; then, start singing with the flute entrance. The author of the text is John A. Dalles.

You’re probably heard of the Southern Harmony, source of many famous hymns tunes such as Amazing Grace. The Union Harmony is equally interesting.

A reminder that all the music I’ve put together for Lakewood UCC since we began the covid-19 lockdown is available as a free streaming playlist at https://soundcloud.com/hilton-kean-jones/sets/music-at-lakewood.

O Loving Founder Of The Stars

For me, the best part of having a church gig, is having an excuse to write original music and arrangements that serve a purpose in the real world and which must realistically fit the performance conditions/capabilities.

This is one such piece, fresh today. It’s an old plainsong melody, which I arranged for chorus, but I’ve re-arranged here for brass.

https://soundcloud.com/hilton-kean-jones/o-loving-founder-of-the-stars

This piece has a very wide dynamic range, starting pianissimo and ending forte.

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