"Hummingbrrd", by Steven Bryant (composed 2011 on commission from Robert Benton)
January 26, 2022
This is a live recording from a recent concert. I had a blast playing on a programme with a number of my friends, and I think the audience enjoyed this goofy finale of a piece. :) The composer's notes (from the original score):
"Hummingbrrd began life as a purely electronic track consisting of only
sounds I made with my own voice, tuned, transposed, and processed. When Robert Benton asked me to write a work for him, I realized adapting this lively tune would make the perfect encore work for Euphonium – an instrument with the requisite range and agility necessary to pull off the rather demanding technical requirements of the music. I finally got to hear Robert perform it live at the 2012 International Tuba Euphonium Conference in Linz, Austria, and was blown away by his technical and musical prowess in realizing the piece, and he even made it sound easy! The music should be lighthearted and fun, exuding an effortless virtuosity."

Nathanael Kumar, Euphonium