“Ode To Joy” for massed music students

Ode To Joy – Contact me for score, parts and recordings.

When a school district requests a massed performance of all the music students, panic may fill the hearts of the music teachers.

This arrangement of Beethoven’s famous melody may help ease your minds. It was written especially for the Newport-Mesa Unified School District Arts Showcase, 2007, and was conducted by Kevin Weed in 2007 and 2008. The intent was to provide an enjoyable, practical piece for all choral and instrumental students, elementary through high school, beginning through advanced.

PARTS:

Choral: SSATB High School and advanced Jr. High singers; melody only for younger, elementary singers.
Band: Full high school / jr. high band arrangement; parts at several levels of difficulty for beginning winds and electric bass; recorders and ”EZ recorders”
Strings: High school string orchestra; beginning strings; ”EZ strings” on mostly open strings.

Many careful steps were taken in the arranging and rehearsing of the parts to ensure that the performance of these massed groups would be well coordinated. Three verses of the well-known Henry van Dyke poem-hymn are used. Each group is featured at different times throughout the piece.

A recording of Kevin Weed playing the piece on piano was distributed to all music teachers to facilitate rehearsal and coordination of all the various groups of musicians and is available to you. Kevin is happy to assist in any way to make your performance successful.