Old Ben’s Farm (Fanfare for Wind Symphony) was commissioned by the University of New Hampshire in celebration of the university’s sesquicentennial. The title for the piece was inspired by a passage on the UNH website which presents a brief history of the university, describing the enormous growth and development of campus over the past 150 years, and culminating with the fact that even as the university continues to evolve, it also continues to “rest lightly on old Ben Thompson’s farm.” This seemed to me to be the perfect title for a piece that is meant to celebrate all that the university has become.

For me, one of the most exciting aspects of this project was that it provided the opportunity to compose something directly for my own students here at UNH, an opportunity that I have only had once previously. To that end, I solicited ideas from the members of the ensemble and eventually chose one of those ideas as the basis for the fanfare. This idea was to use a musical cryptogram to spell words musically within the piece, a concept employed by composers throughout history. I loved the idea and ended up using the name “Wild E. Cat” as the generator for most of the material in the piece. The main melody spells out the word and much of the harmonic material does as well. There are also two arrival points in the work which spell out “UNH.” More than anything, though, I attempted to compose a fanfare that would honor the history of UNH while looking forward with excitement toward the next 150 years on Old Ben’s Farm.