Artistic
Resources
LGBTQ+ Composers
Whether it’s Barber or Bernstein, Strayhorn or Standridge, Grundman or Giroux, there is no shortage of LGBT musical influences. Here are some websites with comprehensive lists of LGBTQ+ composers.
Concert Programs
Gather inspiration for concerts from Pride Bands Alliance member bands programs.
Submit your band’s programs, send in .png or .jpg format to membership@pridebands.org.
Copyright and Licenses
Learn more about copyright and licensing by visiting the pages in the list below:
- American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) (copyright)
- BMI (copyright)
- GALA Choruses (copyright)
- Harry Fox Agency (music rights and royalties)
- Ignite! 2019 All Rights All Rights All Rights
- National Association for Music Education (copyright)
- SESAC – Licensing
- Tresona (licensing; Tresona owns the marching band, choral, and orchestra custom-arrangement license rights to most major catalogues)
Public Domain Music
Trying to build a concert, but have limited funds? Here are some free options in the public domain.
Music Commissioned for Pride Bands Alliance events and Member Bands
Pride Bands Alliance (FKA Lesbian And Gay Band Association, LGBA) and Member Bands have contributed to the world of music. Here are some of the works.
Music Commissioned for Pride Bands Alliance Events
Mile High, composed by Julie Giroux
Commissioned by the Mile High Freedom Bands, commemorating Forty Years of Standing with Pride. Derek Hebert, Artistic Director.
Premiered at the Pride Band Alliance 2023 Conference, in Denver Colorado
Black Kettle Band, composed by Brent Michael Davids
Commissioned by the Mile High Freedom Bands, Derek Hebert, Artistic Director. Black Kettle Band was composed to remember the Southern Cheyenne peace chief Black Kettle (Moke-ta-ve-to), one of the Council of Forty-Four, who worked tirelessly waging peace through treaties and negotiation, despite facing the cruel realities of forced removals.
Premiered at the Pride Band Alliance 2023 Conference, in Denver Colorado
For Purple Mountains, composed by Greg Weis (Jazz Band)
Commissioned by the Mile High Freedom Bands, Shawn Williams, Jazz Director.
Premiered at the Pride Band Alliance 2023 Conference, in Denver Colorado
Como La Flor, composed by Pete Astudillo and A.B. Quintanilla, arranged Amber Sheeran (Pep Band)
Commissioned by the Mile High Freedom Bands.
Premiered at the Pride Band Alliance 2023 Conference, in Denver Colorado
Griffin, composed by Christen Taylor Holmes
Commissioned by the Lakeside Pride Music Ensembles for Pride Bands Alliance 40th Anniversary conference “Sweet Home Chicago”.The piece was inspired by Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, a trans activist from Chicago and a part of the Stonewall Riots.
Premiered at the Pride Band Alliance 2022 Conference, in Chicago Illinois
love words, composed by Evan Williams
Commissioned by the Pride Bands Alliance for their 40th Anniversary conference “Sweet Home Chicago”.The piece is inspired by the poem “Romance” by Harlem Renaissance poet Claude McKay.
Premiered at the Pride Band Alliance 2022 Conference, in Chicago Illinois
My Soul To Keep, composed by Julie Giroux
Dedicated to All touched by gun violence, as an elegy for deceased victims and a promise to the living
Commissioned by The Lesbian and Gay Band Association, Central Florida Sounds of Freedom Band, Tampa Bay Pride Band, and South Florida Pride Wind Ensemble, in commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.
Premiered at the LGBA 2019 Conference, in Orlando, Florida
Stonewall: 1969, composed by Randall Standridge
Commissioned by The Lesbian and Gay Band Association, Central Florida Sounds of Freedom Band, Tampa Bay Pride Band, and South Florida Pride Wind Ensemble, in commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the day that Marsha P. Johnson broke a mirror and, thus, a ceiling for all of us. If someone tries to make you feel ashamed of yourself, as Marsha would say, “Pay it no mind.”
Premiered at the LGBA 2019 Conference, in Orlando, Florida
Into the Blue, Composed by Ingrid Stölzel
The phrase “into the blue” invokes thoughts of a journey into the unknown, an openness toward new possibilities, all accompanied by a playful, adventurous spirit and a big dose of spontaneity. I imagine a journey from one place to another without a direct route pre-mapped between start and finish. Into the Blue for orchestra was commissioned and premiered by the Youth Symphony of Kansas City in 2003. This concert band version was commissioned for the 2018 Lesbian and Gay Band Association National Conference in Kansas City and was premiered in May 2018
Rise: A Gay Games Anthem, composed by Rossano Galante
Commissioned by the Federation of Gay Games to accompany the raising of its official flag.
Premiered at the 2018 Gay Games in Paris, France
Variations On “The Yellow Rose Of Texas”, a collaborative arrangement by Directors Of LGBA
Arranged by Jeff Bodkin, David Grider, Lee Hartman, Scott Helms, Chris Johnson, Gwen-Marie Lerch, Timothy V. Norris Jr., Justin Raines, and Jason Stephens
Arranged for the 35th Anniversary of The Lesbian and Gay Band Association
To have been premiered at LGBA 2017 Conference, in Houston, Texas
Colors: A Celebration, composed by Tim Jansa
Commissioned by Atlanta Freedom Bands
Honoring 35 Years of The Rainbow Pride Flag
Premiered at LGBA 2013 Conference, in Atlanta, Georgia
City Trees, composed by Michael Markowski
Commissioned by Lesbian And Gay Band Association
Celebrating 30 Years of Music, Visibility, Pride
Premiered at LGBA 2012 Conference, in Dallas, Texas
Music Commissioned by Member Bands
If your band has commissioned works that you would like to include here, send the information to membership@pridebands.org.
One Magnificent Light, Composed by Mattea Williams
Commissioned by the San Francisco Pride Band as part of their BIPOC Commission Program. The piece depicts the “one magnificent light” we all have within us, and with courage, love, and encouragement from others, that light can be ignited joining with the magnificent light of a community that erupts into a technicolor superbloom.
Premiered September 2024
Cobra, Composed by Mattea Williams
Commissioned by the San Francisco Pride Band as part of their BIPOC Commission Program. Cobra was originally written in the form of a Tenor Saxophone solo piece with piano accompaniment. This arrangement transforms the original work into a vibrant and energetic mixed-meter concert wind band composition; embodying the energy of the snake with striking brass and slithering, lyrical winds.
Premiered March 2024
...and kisses are a better fate than wisdom, Composed by Alec Schantz
Commissioned by the Houston Pride Band, inspired by the poem [since feeling is first] by E.E. Cummings, and in the composer’s view, is about loving without reason or regret.
Premiered June 2023
Loved, Never Alone, Composed by Dr. Joseph Earp
Written for and premiered by the Houston Pride Band for the concert “Summer Love: Music inspired by the greatest muse of all.” The piece was written as a reminder to parents to lead with love, always. Parents should be loving champions for their child, honoring their identity and being a supportive guide during developing relationships. Premiered June 2023
Awakening, Composed by Roger Zare
Commissioned by the San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band as part of their BIPOC Commission Program. The work is built around the moment a person realizes and embraces their identity.
Premiered May 2023
Emerald, Composed by Lee Hartman
Emerald was written for the 20th anniversary of Mid America Freedom Band. Emerald is the traditional gemstone of 20th anniversaries, and so the four movements of the piece draw inspiration from the chemical composition, color combinations, geographic allusions, and Gilbert Baker’s choice of green representing nature in the LGBTQ+ Pride flag (with a dash of Wizard of Oz), which all coalesce to form this suite.
Composed 2023
Sleigh Ride from “Symphonukkah”, Composed by Sonya Leonore Stahl
Sleigh Ride from “Symphonukkah” combines traditional Hanukkah tunes “Chanukkah, O Chanukkah,” “Adon Olam,” and “Maoz Tzur” in a clever quodlibet style. This work is the third piece in the Mid America Freedom Band’s Sleigh Ride Project to create new sleigh rides for holiday programming from living composers.
Composed 2023
Seaside Sleigh Ride, Composed by Paul Mullins
Seaside Sleigh Ride is the second piece written for the Mid America Freedom Band’s (Kansas City, Mo.) Sleigh Ride Project to commission new holiday works within the popular sleigh ride genre. The piece is a charming calypso with an infectious tune. Picture palm trees festooned with Christmas lights, grab a sorrel cocktail, lay back, and enjoy the warm breeze far away from snow.
Composed 2022
Hustle and Bustle, Composed by Andrea Reinkemeyer
Composed as part of the Mid America Freedom Band’s Sleigh Ride Project, Hustle and Bustle for concert band is a re-composition of Hydroelectric Slide, the eleventh movement of a set of graduated piano pieces called Souvenirs.
Composed 2021
Kansas City Superman, Composed by Jackie Myers (for Jazz Band)
Commissioned by the Mighty Mo Combo. This work for jazz band musically captures Michael Wheeler, known around Kansas City as the “KC Superman.”
Composed 2021
asphyxiating sky, Composed by Stephen Ryan Jackson
asphyxiating sky seeks to recreate the physical and emotional sensations of fading memories, past fears, and the horrors that humanity has and continues to inflict on itself. This piece was commissioned by the Mid America Freedom Band.
Composed 2020
It’s For Us (Concerto for Two Drag Queens), Composed by Stacy Bush
Commissioned by and is dedicated to the Mid America Freedom Band, Kansas City, Missouri, artistic director Lee Hartman.It’s for Us reflects the complicated relationship of a mother and daughter, further exacerbated by the hugeness of the characters portrayed, Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli, the colossal public expectation that was thrown onto each of them and the ultimate cost of celebrity. It is a relationship so complex, you can both float in its many beauties and drown in its deep undercurrents. It is tragic and miraculous, it is drenched in addiction, and that is all to say that it is about fierce women.
Premiered May 2020
The Four Swords, Composed by Olivia Kieffer
Commission from the Mid America Freedom Band, as a result of their Call for Proposals to write the ensemble a new piece for the concert band’s 2018-19 season, “Colors”.The swords of Vengeness, Hoodlums, Justice, and Chaos are all represented in the music with color and rhythm themes. The colors weave and starkly shift until they all come together at the end as a Very Large Concert Band rainbow! This music is a tribute to the enduring and hilarious adventures of childhood imagination.
Premiered 2019
Silver Lake, Composed by Louisa Trewartha
The piece is set out as a day at Silver Lake from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House on the Prairie” series. Starting with the rustling of the breeze in the grass by the water, and the bird-life waking.Commissioned and premiered by Mid America Freedom Band October 29, 2017 at the National World War I Museum and Memorial
The Four Swords, Composed by Olivia Kieffer
Commissioned by Lee Hartman and the Mid America Freedom Band and is dedicated to them. Coronal mass ejections (C.M.E.) often accompany solar flares during storms on the surface of the sun.Though C.M.E.s have been known to interfere with our satellites, communications, and power grids, they gift us with the awesome beauty of aurora borealis. This work is meant to invoke the mood and spirit of these cataclysmic events. The alteration between consonance and dissonance is merely a reflection of the beauty, wonder, and ominous nature of these mysterious solar activities.
Premiered 2016
Burn It Down. Salt the Earth. Composed by J.M. Gerraughty
This is a piece about the ways in which people use destruction as a form of catharsis. To burn something is to destroy it — a violent cleansing. Salting the earth is a ritual meant to ensure that once something is destroyed, nothing can possibly return in its place. We believe that some wounds shouldn’t be fully healed, and that we need permanent scars as painful reminders of what took place, lest we forget and fall victim to history repeating.Burn It Down. Salt the Earth. was supported, in part, by the Kansas City Alumnae Chapter of Sigma Alpha Iota and commissioned by the Mid America Freedom Band.
Premiered 2016
… IN FRAGILE BARK, O’ER A TEMPESTUOUS SEA, THE COMMON HARBOR …, Composed by Lee Hartman
Commissioned and premiered by the Charlotte Pride Band. is an instrumental requiem for vibraphone and concert band dedicated to those 49 lives lost during the shooting at Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida, on June 12, 2016..
Premiered 2016
Six, Composed by Nicole Murphy
Commissioned by the Mid America Freedom Band for a concert with the theme of ‘stories we share’. This piece explores stories from Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-word memoirs by famous & obscure writers (ed. Smith Magazine), in which writers were asked to share their memoir in only six words.
Premiered 2016
Song for Edie, Composed by Lee Hartman
Commissioned and premiered by the Minnesota Freedom Band under the direction of Eric Dollerschell-Petry. Edie Windsor created a tsunami of progress with her bravery and her stance against injustice. Song for Edie is an optimistic homage to her continued valiant efforts for equality and serves as a thank you to the millions of allies of equal rights. Premiered 2015
Kolo, Composed by Derek M Jenkins
Commissioned in 2014 by Lee Hartman and the Mid America Freedom Band. A kolo, which translates to round or circle, is a fast and lively traditional folk dance that originated in the Balkans.
Premiered 2015
Saphire, Composed by Lee Hartmen
Commissioned by and written for the Mid America Freedom Band (MAFB) in honor of its tenth anniversary. Sapphire is the gemstone of tenth anniversaries, but more importantly that brilliant blue represents “harmony” in the LGBTQ Pride flag.
Premiered 2013
