Ok, if you say, “band music,” most people think “marching bands – sporting events.”  So if someone tells you there is a band work entitled Ra – you might automatically respond: “sis-boom-ba.”  But that’s not at all what composer David Dzubay had in mind.  He was thinking of RA, the ancient Egyptian sun god.

A major figure in Egyptian mythology, the sun god Ra was born anew each day and journeyed across the sky doing battle with his chief enemy, a serpent named Apep.
David Dzubay’s band composition named Ra is, as he describes it, “a rather aggressive depiction of an imagined ritual of sun worship, perhaps celebrating the daily battles of Ra and Apep.”

Originally written for orchestra, Dzubay arranged his piece for concert band, and in this incarnation, it won an annual competition for new bands works.  Ra was first performed by the Indiana University Symphonic Band, led by Ray Cramer at the College Band Directors’ National Convention in Minneapolis on today’s date in 2003. 

Both the venue and the performers selected for that premiere must have seemed particularly gratifying to Dzubay, since he was born in Minneapolis and received his Doctorate in Music at Indiana University.

David Dzubay (b. 1964) Ra University of North Texas Wind Symphony, Eugene Corporon, conductor. Klavier 11137