BandQuest Premiere - "Charm" by Kevin Puts

The latest BandQuest piece, Charm, will premiere on May 9, 2012 at the spring concert of the Scarsdale Middle School 8^th grade band in Scarsdale, NY, under the direction of Nicholas Lieto. Charm was written by Kevin Puts, winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in Music. The free performance will be at the school, 134 Mamaroneck Road, Scarsdale, at 7:30 p.m.  In addition to Puts’ new composition, the band will also present a culmination of their year’s work.

Charm was commissioned by the American Composers Forum as part of their BandQuest® series.  “This series fosters collaborations between composers and young bands through a residency component.  It gives the composer and the students the opportunity to learn from each other through this process,” said John Nuechterlein, President and CEO at American Composers Forum. 

In preparation of writing his piece, Puts visited the Scarsdale Middle School band. His attendance at rehearsals helped him tailor his piece to the needs of the students. Of the piece, Puts writes:

My ideas for "Charm" came to me immediately after I first met Nick Lieto and the band at Scarsdale Middle School. The school is fifteen minutes from my home, and on the drive home I could hear a sort of mystical harmonic palette with triangles ringing over a pentatonic melody, as if a spell had been cast. I realized when I got to my piano and began playing it that it was in the irregular meter of 7/8. I decided to call it "Charm" because, for me, the music conjures up magic and good-luck charms and the sort, and I was also thinking of the other meaning of the word, that intangible quality possessed by certain people and places that truly can cast a spell.