Poem for Symphonic Wind Band
- Duration: ca. 20 minutes
- Picc (=Fl 1), 2 Fls, A.Fl (= Fl 2).Obs, Bsns, 3 Cls, B. Cl, 2 A. Sxs, T. Sx, B. Sx, 4 Hns, 5 Tpts , 3 Tbns, Bar, 2 Tbas, Str. Bass, Perc (6)
In 2005, I composed Song of the Sea for the conductor and director of the Bands and Symphony Orchestra at Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky: Dennis L. Johnson.
I composed the Song of the Sea for Dennis Johnson in 2005.
This is what he said about the piece:
Boris Pigovat is a bright, fresh voice in the world of wind band composition. His “Song of the Sea” is an original tone poem written for myself and the Murray State University Symphonic Wind Ensemble and was premiered in a special performance in Carnegie Hall on March 29 of 2005. This dramatic work captures the beauty and majesty of the open sea as well as its darker and more ominous mood during a ferocious storm. The work carries the listener on a journey through calm and tempest and ends with a grandiose climax that rivals any of the great programmatic composers of this or any era. The wind ensemble and I thoroughly enjoyed the preparation and performance of this masterful work as did the exhilarated crowd in Carnegie Hall that called us back three times. “Song of the Sea” deserves to be on all collegiate and (technically proficient) high school band programs throughout the world. It is a masterpiece for wind band.
That same year, maestro Johnson premiered the piece with the Murray State University Wind Ensemble at Carnegie Hall, in New York.
Later that summer, he performed it at (a repertoire session at) the WASBE Conference in Singapore.
The piece also received the 2005 ACUM Prize (ACUM is the Israeli analog of ASCAP).
In 2009, Song of the Sea had its European premiere in Germany, performed by the Munich Academic Wind Orchestra, conducted by Michael Kummer.
Below is the recording from the premiere in Carnegie Hall.