The Safe-Kept Memory (2021)
for Wind Band
Approx. Duration: 5’
Commissioned by the Heswall Concert Band to celebrate their 25th anniversary year, first performed as part of the Wirral Arts Festival on October 3rd 2021.
Suitable for all community, youth and professional band standards.
‘The Safe-Kept Memory (2021) is a short work commissioned to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Heswall Concert Band. The piece is titled after and influenced by the poem ‘The Coin’ by the American lyric poet, Sara Teasdale (1884-1933), which also informs the melodic contour of the work and reads:
‘Into my heart’s treasury
I slipped a coin
That time cannot take
Nor a thief purloin,
Oh better than the minting
Of a gold-crowned king
Is the safe-kept memory
Of a lovely thing.’
- Sara Teasdale
This inspired the work after reading the words of Les Stevenson, a founding member and president of the band, who enthuses that one of the greatest benefits of being a musician, is friendship. This friendship, especially within the community of a long-standing band, is perhaps to be celebrated as the safe-kept memory of a lovely thing.’
©G.E.M.2021