Program Note:

Bandanna is a grand opera scored for wind orchestra, with an onstage mariachi band, that was commissioned by over a hundred university bands around the United States. It was premiered at the February 1999 College Band Directors National Association Convention in Austin Texas. A recasting of the Shakespeare tale of the Moor, it was reset along the Texas-Mexican border in 1968. Othello became Morales, a Latin sheriff, and Desdemona became Mona, his caucasian wife. Mona’s Act Two, scene iii “Willow Song” is played out in the bardo of the squalid motel in which she’s been hiding from her jealous husband. Outside, sharing a cigarette, are three mariachi violinists, whose ghostly playing is her only accompaniment.

This concert aria is an orchestration of the theatrical aria scored not just for three violins, but for the complete wind orchestra.