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Mr. Atlas

Mr. Atlas, scored for concert band, finds its inspiration in the old Charles Atlas body building advertisements I would often find in the popular magazines and comic books available to me in childhood. In the most popular of these ads, a bully confronts a slight weakling at a beach and kicks sand in his face. Using the Atlas method, the weakling then transforms himself into a muscle bound hero of sorts. Mr. Atlas, then, is a kind of work of musical transformation- from the meek to the triumphant. After an austere introduction giving a hint of what’s to come, the solo clarinet presents a lonely, principal theme. Like a muscular exercise, each musical section that follows grows in density and volume, along with the theme, arriving finally at the work’s climactic moment- an Americana-like hymn, slowly unfolding into a triumphant conclusion. Mr. Atlas was commissioned by the College Band Director’s National Association for a consortium of fifteen collegiate wind ensembles, and was premiered by the Georgia State University wind ensemble, Robert Ambrose, conductor.

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