Symphonic Ellington: A Guide to the Duke’s Orchestral Work

As a season of 125th-birthday celebrations for the Duke Ellington ends, we at Wise Music wish to thank everyone who celebrated the “Maestro” the past few years. To sound the music of Duke Ellington in the orchestral hall provides symphonic audiences with the chance to encounter a vital strand of American music-making. It is also an overdue reclamation of Ellington’s status as a quintessential American composer. He has left an inexorable mark on over five decades of artistic creation and culture, with echoes resounding across musical fields, civil rights, cultural diplomacy, and more.

So that Ellington’s music can continue to enrich orchestral culture around the world, Wise Music is pleased to present Symphonic Ellington, a brand-new guide to our orchestral arrangements of Ellington’s suites and other large-scale works. It details the chronology and provenance of ten different compositions and their many respective arrangements, providing detailed information and historical context as to the why and how of their scoring, adaptation, and quality of performance material. The guide also features programming suggestions that allow Ellington’s music to be thoughtfully presented on subscription concerts and other concert series, with input from Thomas Wilkins, JoAnn Falletta, William Eddins, and other collaborators and longtime champions of the Maestro.

Download the 'Symphonic Ellington' guide or peruse its online version in the window below.

 

To complement our guide, highlights from our Ellington catalog have been compiled into a Spotify playlist.

For more information, please contact your local Wise Music Promotion Team; Contact Us.