"A New Hope" for Jessica

My adorable (yet growing-up-way-too-fast) niece Jessica is graduating from the 5th grade in a few weeks & will be starting middle school in the fall. In preparation for their graduation celebration, my sister has been charged with gathering photos of all the 5th graders in the elementary school and putting together a slideshow. Since they can't use any copyright-protected music, she asked me if I would be willing to write 5 minutes worth of background music for the slideshow that will be shown during the ceremony and later burned onto CDs for all of the students.

The result was A New Hope – a 5-minute piece  reflecting nostalgia, happiness, & hope. Piano provides the instrumental basis for the piece. Jessica will be playing flute in 6th grade band in the fall, so I of course merged the piano melodies with flute as the piece progressed. Here's the recording followed by the instrumentation:

listen

A New Hope (electronic realization)

Instrumentation

Piano 4-hands
Flute
Electric Bass
Percussion 1 (Bells, Ocean Drum)
Percussion 2 (Suspended Cymbal, Egg Shaker, Bell Tree, Mark Tree)
Percussion 3 (Concert Bass Drum, Claves)
Drum Set
Violin 1
Violin 2
Viola
Cello
Bass

Comments

[Tracey Ross]

Thanks for making me cry at work! : )
It is a beautiful tribute to a sweet, beautiful girl. We will enjoy it for years to come.

Thank you!

[Melody]

This blog post - and the whole story in general - makes me so happy. Everything about it - that they made the slideshow, that they asked you to help, that you said yes, what you wrote, that your music will be a part of these young people's special time - all of it is just really, really fine. Good stuff.