Wind Ensemble

duration: 4.5 mins.

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Note:

Mesquite Flat Holiday is a tribute to Ron Nelson and his legendary contributions to the wind band repertoire. His own fanfare-like “holidays” were inspired by travel and a sense of place, so naturally they’re saturated with the thrill of adventure from start to finish. The Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes seem to sprawl all the way to the stark Cottonwood Mountain Range in the middle of Death Valley National Park, ancestral and current home of living Timbisha Shoshone people. The dunes are only one elegant feature within the uniquely vast, variable, beautiful landscape, but the desert is totally brutal at the same time. Death Valley is home to the hottest temperatures in the world, enough to melt your park pass left in your car. Signs of life don’t seem to be present much of the time, though the surreal geology reminds us that the Earth is very alive itself.