Arranging for the Instrumental Performance Ensemble

We will demonstrate how we collaborate to arrange music for our fifteen-member mixed instrumental music ensemble and aim to show a path that allows music programs at small liberal arts colleges to be globally inclusive, student-centered, and professionally relevant. Rather than trying to find repertoire for our ensemble’s chance collection of instrumentalists, it is more practical and rewarding to select and arrange music for our specific needs, considering the following issues: 1) suitability for the technical skill level of our musicians (mostly non-majors), 2) length, style, and complexity of the works, 3) can the arrangement sound good on its own terms, not just like a lesser version of the original? 4) music covered in academic courses, 5) student interests. We focused on two types of sources: 1) Piano music, including sets of Beethoven Ecossaisen, Schubert Ländler, and short works by Debussy and Bartók–composers also discussed in required core courses. 2) Songs from the institution’s own song book, which is a collection of music written in the 1930s by students for glee club competitions. It includes more-or-less serious songs cheering and praising the institution, which we arranged as danzóns, son-montunos, and sambas–genres also covered in a global music course. This creative work was supported by a Student-Faculty Collaborative Research Grant.