Test Selection: Whitsun Wakes

A Grade Test Piece Selection

for our A Grade Own-Choice selections

Whitesun Wakes by Michael Ball

Michael Ball, born in Manchester in 1946, studied at the Royal College of Music under Herbert Howells, Humphrey Searle, and John Lambert as a Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust Scholar. In 1970, he took master classes with Nadia Boulanger and won all major composition prizes at the College, including the Octavia Travelling Scholarship, which enabled him to study with Franco Donatoni in Italy during 1972 and 1973. There, he also participated in master classes with Luciano Berio and György Ligeti.

Ball's music is frequently played and broadcast in the UK and worldwide. He has received numerous commissions, including five from the BBC in the past decade. His notable orchestral works include *Resurrection Symphonies* (1982) and *Danses vitales: Danses macabres* (1987). His wind and brass works include *Omaggio* (1986), *Frontier!* (1984), *Midsummer Music* (1991), *Chaucer's Tunes* (1993), and *Whitsun Wakes* (1997), the latter commissioned by the BBC and performed by the Black Dyke Band.

Significant choral works by Ball include *Sainte Marye Virgine* (1979), *A Hymne to God my God* (1984), and *Nocturns* (1990). He has also composed several pieces for younger musicians, notably the opera *The Belly Bag*.

Michael Ball resides in Ireland with his wife Miriam and their son Alexander.

Whitsun Wakes was commissioned by the BBC and first performed by the Black Dyke Mills Band conducted by James Watson at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester in May 1997 and it was subsequently chosen as the test piece for the British Open of 1997 which was initially postponed due to the death of Princess Diana and actually took place in the January of the following year.

The composer writes that the work is a tribute to the Lancastrian towns of his youth who would celebrate the Whitsun weekend, by either observing and taking part in the traditional Whitsun Walks or decamp to the seaside to enjoy themselves. Thus there is a strong element of the processional march and hymns of the non conformist churches and a sense of excited revelry as he workers enjoy the rides and pubs of a forever sunny Blackpool pleasure beach.

Finally there is an element of reflective sadness in the music as the composer returns in musical thought to the Belle Vue Championships of yesteryear and the memories he had of his grandfather who was a lover of bands and their music and who was a devotee of the Sandbach based Fodens band, a band that in his youth was nigh on unbeatable.