Emerald Skies

Emerald Skies was composed for Bandmaster Ross Johnson and the Camberwell Citadel Band of the Salvation Army; it was recorded on their album “Equilibrium”. The piece is a beautiful solo that gives the opportunity for the soloist to show off their lyrical playing and sound to the full. The tempo of the solo is marked as 100 beats per minute, which keeps the music moving throughout.

Emerald Skies can be played as a flugel horn solo or a cornet solo, and with that in mind, the flugel part within the ensemble can be omitted if the flugel player is the soloist. A rare opportunity happens at one point during the piece where the soloist is given a choice of two melody lines to play. One line shows off the soloist's range as it soars from a top C in minims, the other line is a quaver melody that centres around a high G. The soloist simply picks one of the lines to play leaving the other but on another performance they might wish to swap them around.