VARIATIONS ON A KOREAN FOLK SONG
THIS IS BASED UPON A FOLK TUNE, 'ARRIANG', THAT THE COMPOSER, JOHN BARNES CHANCE, LEARNED WHILE SERVING IN KOREA AS A MEMBER OF THE 8TH U.S. ARMY BAND. (1966 OSTWALD AWARD). PERFORMED MY 2ND YR. AT THE NATIONAL MUSIC CAMP BY H.S. SYMPHONIC BAND #1.
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Story behind the song
Variations on a Korean Folk Song is based upon a folk tune that the composer learned while serving the U.S. Army in Seoul, Korea. The tune is known as "Arrirang". In autumn 1966, for the Journal of Band Research, Chance said: I became acquainted with the folk song while serving in Seoul, Korea, as a member of the Eighth U.S. Army Band in 1958-59.
Variations on a Korean Folk Song is arguably John Barnes Chance's best known composition for band, and is a work which won the ABA Ostwald Award in 1966. The pentatonic theme is heard at the outset and is contrasted with six variations: the first is scherzo-like, the second was surely inspired by the French composer Erik Satie, the third is march-like, the fourth is a chorale; variation five is a fugue, starting with the percussion section, and the sixth and final variation combines the fugue theme with the folk song heard in long note values in the brass.
John Barnes Chance (b Beaumont, TX, 20 Nov 1932; d Lexington, KY, 16 Aug 1972). American composer. He began studying composition at the age of 15, and received the BM and MM degrees from the University of Texas, Austin, where he was a pupil of Clifton Williams, Kent Kennan and Paul Pisk; he won the Carl Owens Award for student composition in 1956 and 1957. He was a timpanist with the Austin SO and an arranger for the Fourth and Eighth US Army Bands before serving as composer-in-residence for the Ford Foundation Young Composers Project, Greensboro, North Carolina. In 1966 he joined the music department at the University of Kentucky, a position he held until his death. His most popular compositions include Variations on a Korean Folk Song (which won the American Bandmasters Association Ostwald Award in 1966), Incantation and Dance, Elegy, Blue Lake Overture, Introduction and Capriccio and the Symphony no.2, finished just before his death. Chance's works are tonal and unabashedly romantic, demonstrating rhythmic inventiveness and a secure command of instrumentation.