Armenian Dances, Part I: B-flat Tenor Saxophone

I remember playing this piece 2 years ago in Carnegie Hall, and man did I have the time of my life😭 I miss 2nd flute😭

I played this in high school and had the opportunity to have Alfred Rees direct a lesson with us!

I played this song freshman year wind ensemble and I remember thinking, "man, third horn is so hard" now as first horn I look back and scoff. Amazing song though very fun memories.

I last played this piece in 1989 at Morehead State University's Band Festival. The honor band was conducted by Dr. Harry Begian - the man that commissioned this work with Alfred Reed as a memorial of his father and his childhood in Armenia. Needless to say, the tempo was about twice as fast in most places throughout his interpretation. No mercy at all on a bunch of high school musicians, especially the tuba section during the last portion of this piece. Wow!

I'm playing this in a couple weeks and I absolutely love it! Reed really knew how to orchestrate and he always gives us tubas such great parts.

Clarinets had to do so so many scales just to be covered over by trombones. I found that flutes get melody and clarinets get to do trills and scales. But it was a fun piece. Equal to all parts really.

Forever a classic, I'm privileged to play the same piece my dad did when he was in high school and hopefully the same piece my kids will one day play.

Played this year for MPA wind ensemble for my school I'm in tenth grade and never had so much fun in a piece, second trombone has never been more fun. Got a perfect score for this and Elsa Procession to the Cathedral and Melody Shop best set ever.

I'm playing this right now in two different community bands at the same time. In one of them I'm playing 1st clarinet and the other one I'm playing 3rd clarinet. Going to be interesting bouncing between the two parts frequently.

I was in high school band senior year 1992. My band instructor asked me to try a new instrument and play along with the bass clarinet and the tuba. My new instrument was the contra bass clarinet. Oh by the way, the bass clarinet was written in Bb of course and the tuba was written in C. My task before I could even play the song was to transpose everything to Eb then get the octaves approved by my instructor, it took me 2 weeks. I love the song.

This is the first piece I have with a cool oboe part after years of playing flute parts and "oboe" parts that are really just flute parts anyway

By far one of my favorite pieces to have played timpani on

I had the pleasure in enjoying this piece alongside my peers at my high school concert last week. We were terrified the first time it was handed out to each section, but we ate it all up in approximately three months of preparation. Until now, the intricate sounds of every instrument conjoined into multiple melodies make me tear up. I wish to play this once more in college.

I'm playing this now as an eighth grader clarinet 1. It's so much fun!

I get to play this piece as principal tuba in All State and all the "1 tuba" parts have ridiculous rhythms. Can't wait to spend all afternoon figuring them out

As a tuba player who played this year, this piece was really fun to play but some of the rhythms were really confusing to get my head around

We played this in eighth grade band. Tough stuff, but very rewarding.