Starfire Fanfare

Recently, at the Texas Music Educators Association convention, I had an interesting conversation with a director.  She said that she wished there was more beginning band repertoire that taught 6/8, and that most of what she had found was too hard.  I put this conversation in the back of my brain and let it cook for a while. It occurred to me that the reason most young musicians struggle with 6/8 is that most pieces introduce ALL iterations of 6/8 rhythms (or a least, quite a few) immediately with no middle step.  Therefore, I decided to write a piece that would use no more than 5 iterations of 6/8 time but still be a fun concert work. The result was Starfire Fanfare.