In the spring of 2016 I was very honored when Carlo Aonzo asked me to compose a piece to be studied and premiered at the 2017 Carlo Aonzo Workshop, held from June 1-4, 2017 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Driftless is the result of that commission.
I fully planned to be a participant in the 2017 Workshop and to have the pleasure of hearing my piece come to life through the efforts of many of my mandolin playing friends. Certain challenges prevented my attendance but I was delighted to receive a high quality video of the world premiere of the piece conducted by Maestro Aonzo and beautifully played by the workshop attendees. (YouTube link)
Knowing that members of several different American mandolin orchestras would be present at the Workshop I imagined that, with luck, I might sell a few copies of the piece in Milwaukee. When I was unable to attend I then told myself that I would bring some copies to sell at the annual Classical Mandolin Society of America convention in October 2017, also in Milwaukee.
In September 2017 my plans to attend CMSA 2017 unexpectedly changed. Now I have decided to make PDF copies of the score and parts for Driftless freely available for download here under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Generic License linked below. Feel free to make as many copies of the score and parts as are necessary for your orchestra.
The original version of Driftless did not include a bass part, because there would be no bass players attending the Carlo Aonzo Workshop. I have since added a bass part (similar, but not identical, to the mandocello part) to conform to standard mandolin orchestra instrumentation. I also created a tablature version of the guitar part to better indicate some of the fingerings I intended when I wrote the part. I expect most guitarists to play from the standard notation version but the tablature might be useful for clues concerning my intentions.
If you find Driftless to be a good addition to your repertoire and you feel inclined to make a donation in support of my work you use the PayPal Donation button below. Again, this is not required, I just hope that you enjoy the music. I would, however, love to hear about any performances of the piece. PDF copies of concert programs are especially appreciated.
Published by Rosie and Earl Music (ASCAP)
John Goodin, October 18, 2017
Created on October 18, 2017