Dr. Jack Stamp, a composer, conductor, and long-time professor of music, is coming to Edison High to conduct a performance of a piece he composed in 2013. On Friday, Jan. 6, Stamp was rehearsing with Edison student musicians who made up a “wind ensemble,” a group of woodwinds, brass and percussion instruments (but no strings.) The school’s four music groups (rock, beginning band, drumline and concert band) will perform at Edison Auditorium on Wednesday, January 18, at 7 p.m.
Stamp’s work, “A Song of Hope,” is an elementary band piece written in memory of the students at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The J.W. Pepper music website calls it “a brief, musical expression of sorrow for young musicians to perform in memory of the students…and all victims of senseless violence.”
Stamp said, “I didn’t want people to forget it. I wanted to call it ‘A Song for Newtown,’ but my publisher said that, in fifteen years, no one will remember the town’s name.” I wrote a long piece on the 10th anniversary of 9/11. Both of these pieces have a somber tone.”
Edison band director and instrument teacher Lesley Earles said there are around 33 students in the full ensemble.
Stamp continued, “I’m retired now; when I wrote this piece I was still teaching music at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Now I teach part time at the U of Wisconsin-River Falls. And I have in my back yard something that looks like a shed where I can go to write music or practice percussion; I play with the Lake Wobegon Brass Band in Anoka.”
Below: Dr. Jack Stamp with Edison’s ensemble. (Photo by Mark Peterson)