FANFARE FOR DEMOCRACY

FANFARE  small study
10" x 11"

This small study, FANFARE, was inspired by Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man.     My days in the French Horn section were superb in the brass choir ensemble where brass fanfares were standard fare! Fanfare for the Common Man is spectacular to play and I became moved to try to interpret it in cloth. Hence this abstract miniature quilt with the bold colored area representing the rhythm and overall sound of the music, as I experience it. 

The radio program, On the Media, had a wonderful biography of Aaron Copland, "The Sound of America". I learned that Copland's working title, or a title he considered for the fanfare, was Fanfare for Democracy. To celebrate Independence Day, I'll celebrate democratic values: self governance, equality, liberty and justice for all, and a great American composer who wrote a fanfare---Fanfare for the Common Man. listen here    

*and about those horns, "If there exists a more noble sound than eight horns singing a melody fortissimo in unison, I have never heard it." __Aaron Copland