With You: Concert Band Conductor Score & Parts

Balmages transforms a beloved hymn tune into an orchestral experience scaled for concert band, crafting something that feels monumental without losing the warmth of the original melody. The harmonic journey builds purposefully across the work, giving your ensemble plenty of meaningful material to work with while the organ-like sonorities create moments of genuine awe. This is the kind of piece that resonates with audiences long after the final chord.

With You unfolds like a hymn being sung in a vast cathedral, where every chord receives its full weight. The texture grows more intricate as the work progresses, building from simple reverence toward something transcendent. By its close, you'll hear the richness of a full organ swelling around the enduring melody, leaving everyone in the hall moved.

Grade 4 concert bands ready to tackle mature musical ideas and sophisticated harmonic language. This work suits ensembles that have solid fundamentals and are prepared to engage with extended, lyrical forms that ask for musical maturity from every section.

• Balance the fuller voicings carefully in the upper woodwinds and brasses; they should support the melody without drowning it out, especially during the hymn tune statements.
• Let the harmonic resolutions breathe. Resist the urge to rush into the next phrase; give listeners time to absorb each moment of arrival.
• Shape the dynamic arc across the entire 7:30 duration. The increasingly complex harmonies demand attention to long-line phrasing rather than section-by-section interpretation.
• Use the full concert band instrumentation to approximate those organ sonorities Balmages is after, particularly in the lower brass and reed sections during sustained supporting harmonies.

Program this as a closing piece for a concert celebrating spiritual or inspirational themes, where its length and emotional arc deserve undivided attention. It also works well as a festival selection, where judges can appreciate both the compositional craft and the ensemble's ability to shape long, hymn-based forms. Consider pairing it with other works by Balmages to showcase his range, or use it as the finale of a concert that contrasts lighter works earlier in the program.

• Sustaining and shaping long melodic lines over complex harmonic changes
• Balance and blend in multi-layered textures with independent harmonic voices
• Interpreting dynamic and expressive nuance across extended forms
• Reading and executing sophisticated chord progressions while maintaining intonation
• Ensemble maturity in working toward unified musical effect across 7 minutes of connected material