For this arrangement, I wanted the music to provide both an opportunity to remember and an opportunity to enjoy some 'live' music, which was much needed over lockdown when this project took place. It was made in memory of the Manchester Arena terror attack in 2017.
The first section is at a slow tempo and begins with just the rhythm section and a flugelhorn playing the main melody that is so well-known by the public. I aimed to provide a sombre timbre that gave the listeners a time to reflect upon the tragedy. The harmony here is quite simple and consonant. For the second half of the main melody, the saxophones play long notes in the background to gently increase the scale of the piece. As this section progresses, the texture increases, with the lead alto saxophone playing the second part of the melody along with more rhythmic long notes and some syncopation and ornaments from the rest of the saxophones. There is also a more complex accompaniment, now with lots of syncopation and more complex extended chords. After an uplifting modulation to C Major, the sub-dominant, the piece becomes louder overall and more intense. This is reflects the strong emotion in Manchester following the attack. This part of the arrangement heavily featured accented bass notes in the piano, bass guitar, and baritone saxophone, as well as loud cymbal crashes and drum fills in between. The harmony alters between chords from C major and C minor, most of which are extended chords including seventh and half-diminished chords. The main melody is now on a loud trumpet in the upper octave, accompanied by soft saxophones and piano chords in the treble clef. The contrast between the soft and harsh parts here is intentional, because this uncertainty that it creates is very similar to the mood surrounding the terror attack.
In the next section, the tempo doubles and the quavers are swung. I wanted to create a more happy and upbeat section to represent Manchester's resilience. The piano switches to a Rhodes keyboard sound and, along with the bass, plays a descending chromatic passage which secures the music into the new key, Ab Major. The main melody is played again, this time with a homophonic block voicing style in the saxophones which creates a significant contrast to the previous times it has been played. The harmony remains complex however the rest of the accompaniment is quite simplistic as I wanted to focus the listener's attention on the melody. Straight after this, there is a long solo section. Seeing as I knew the musicians who were going to be playing this piece, I wanted to give some of them an opportunity to show their talents. The harmony and accompaniment is the same as with the previous melody, which leads nicely into the repeat of this melody straight after the solo section.
I then chose to include a short medley of famous Manchester songs because I personally think that Manchester's music is what makes it such a special city. The tempo temporarily shifts to half-time and the harmony becomes a lot simpler, with basic triads throughout this section. The texture shifts to melody with accompaniment, so as to highlight the songs that are featured. The saxophones play quiet long notes. The last song of the medley is Blossoms' Charlamagne, which features accented upbeats at the end of the chorus. At this point, I added the trumpets to play the notes heavily accented. This leads into the next section, another repetition of the swing version of the main melody, however this time there are some big band stabs in the trumpets, which created a sense of higher status than the previous times it's been heard.
Afterwards, the tempo moves back to the original, half of the current tempo. The 1st trumpet plays the basic main melody as a solo with no accompaniment, which provides a moment of calm before the end of the piece. For the very end of the piece I wanted to create a large, grand ending, so I used the 'bVI, bVII, I' chords. I also added more instruments on each chord change, meaning that by the ending tonic chord, the instrumentation had gone from almost nothing to the full band.