Here are thoughts from composer Charles Thompson on his new marching band show Castaway!
Take flight to undiscovered lands! Castaway is a vacation getaway, as we set up our adventure with a plane ride, driven by featured artists, the trombone and horn. These are recurring solo voices that we hear throughout the piece and act as the pilots. In Liftoff, I used ascending lines to give a sense of ascension. Shortly after, we hear a calming woodwind melody. This feeling is sustained through sweet melodies through the high woodwinds but has a harsh interruption with loud brass hits.
Originally, I was going to use a sound sample for the alarm but decided to give this feature to one of the performers. My idea with this whole movement is allowing the performers to act out every scene and every part, without the effects of sound samples. Towards the end, we have the climax with our descending low voice line taking the melody and high brass taking on cluster chords. My intention was to create absolute chaos, but still have a little cohesion, so here we should allow the horn part to soar across the band while the rest of the winds bring us to a crashing halt.
In The Shore, I tried to give the music a sense of ambiguity and confusion. This movement is meant to portray the ensemble waking up from the crash with a sense of vertigo. The mallets carry a lot of the rhythmic drive to keep the pulse, as the rest of the band carries out the melodies. The character of the trombone and horn were meant to be the captains of the plane, and in this movement, we see the trombone speak towards the whole ensemble, attempting to bring everyone back together.
In the percussion break, I wanted to give another character to the ensemble: the Natives. This section is the huge color contrast of the entire piece that sets us up for the closer. Another goal of this percussion break was to allow every percussion voice to participate. This was my attempt to separate the band and portray the winds as the survivors of the tragic plane crash and percussionists as the natives.
The ending of Natives bleeds into the closer, Rescue. This movement showcases the battle between the natives and our crew, and the crew fights to their goal of survival. I tried to create a sense of relentless high energy, almost giving a sense of an adrenaline burst inside the body. This section of the music contains solidarity within sections, so we hear some loud, hard impact points, low brass and horn parts. The piece ends with a high trumpet solo, that is written as optional but is HIGHLY encouraged.
It was a personal challenge for me as this was my first personal attempt at writing for the full marching band instrumentation: winds, battery, auxiliary and mallets. It was a blast writing this show and I am incredibly happy with the results!
Check out all of Charles' music here!