In these difficult times, when the outside world is going mad and everyone is so angry and intolerant of others opinions, I have been creating a library of popular pieces of music that can be played by a reduced sized orchestra so that promoters can promote with less risk and those that want to maintain social distancing can do so. The basic orchestration for most of these pieces is 1 flute, 1 oboe, 1 clarinet and 1 bassoon. 2 horns, 2 trumpets and 1 trombone with a timpanist, 2 percussion colleagues and a harp. Bringing up the body of the orchestra are the string players which can number from a few to many. This is the available repertoire Inglis Music Library. I think there's a broad cross-section of repertoire here.
It was begun when in order to tour an orchestra with soloists or cross-over artists and make using an orchestra more viable, we had to reduce the size in order to reduce the costs. I started with a few pieces and as the concept grew, added more to the list and therefore choice. I was never interested in just dropping instruments and pretending they never existed; they did and should not be ignored. Therefore the wind and percussion sections were re-written so to the average person attending a concert, there would be no noticeable difference: it would still sound full and rich, and as close to the original as possible. For instance, generally speaking, you would not want to miss out the 3rd note of a chord in any passage; it would sound bare with just open 5ths. Quite often, the 2nd player of the woodwind section would fill these notes out. Leave out the players, you leave out the important notes. So I rearranged and and redistributed the notes. Now, no important notes are missed out, but the original spirit of the composer's intentions are maintained.
I believe in the idea so much that we are taking it to some smaller theatres where a full sized orchestra of 70 or 80 musicians would make no financial sense. However, one of 33(ish) most definitely does.
If in Milton Keynes, Oxford and Richmond in March and April 2022, look out for us!
