It hardly seems possible that it is now twenty-five years since the initial publication of Kirkpatrick Fanfare. And what a journey! It has been rewarding and fulfilling to hear the piece performed by so many different groups in so many different venues, and it still feels surprising to me because of the work’s rather inauspicious beginnings.

It all began simply enough. My good friend Patrick Casey, who was then Director of Bands at Central Missouri State University in Warrensburg, Missouri, asked me to compose a short work for his wind ensemble. The university was nearing the completion of a beautiful new library named for James C. Kirkpatrick, a CMSU alumnus and the long-time attorney general for the state of Missouri. As part of the celebration of the opening of the facility, Pat’s group was slated to perform a concert, and he asked me to compose a short fanfare to mark the occasion.

I began to ponder how to approach the composition and then found inspiration when Pat sent me a videotaped tour of the facility. He had literally grabbed a hard hat and an over-the-shoulder video camera and walked throughout the building as it was still under construction! I was inspired partway through the tour when he reached a spot in the building where they had chosen to replicate Kirkpatrick's office exactly as it had existed at the state house in Jefferson City. As Pat entered the room, I saw the expected office paraphernalia and knickknacks, but was astonished by how many of them were related to Ireland, including a large Irish flag hanging behind the desk. Immediately I knew this would be the focus of the piece.

The connection point for the work then became the famous Irish folk song Danny Boy, better known to those of us in the band world as Percy Grainger’s classic, Irish Tune from County Derry. My fanfare is something of a retelling of that famous song, slowly “spinning out” the melody over the course of the piece. Kirkpatrick Fanfare is divided into three main sections, each of which corresponds to a phrase of the original song. It begins with a bodhran and tin whistle, traditional Irish folk instruments, playing the opening phrase of Danny Boy in diminution, meaning that the notes are the same as the original but performed much faster, in this case almost to the point where the tune is not recognizable anymore. This builds to an initial climactic arrival involving alternating tutti wind/brass and timpani outbursts, followed by short solos in oboe, bassoon, and tuba which bring this portion of the fanfare to a close. The second section has the most tenuous relationship to the original. After one of the quieter moments in the piece, it begins with another outburst followed by bold brass statements that correspond roughly to the third phrase of Danny Boy. Again, the material reaches a tutti wind/brass alternation with timpani, before moving directly into the final section of the piece. Here the upper woodwinds cycle through an overlapped version of the opening phrase and the brass finally enter with the climactic phrase of Danny Boy, heard clearly for the first time as the source material for the entire piece. A final alternating outburst serves as a coda and sends the piece to its rousing conclusion.

Kirkpatrick Fanfare was premiered by Patrick Casey and the Central Missouri State University Wind Ensemble on March 24, 1999.