Description

AVAILABLE for purchase beginning on JUNE 1, 2026! Request a perusal score HERE

Death Valley Symphony is available for performance as a concert-length work (four movements). Movement may also be performed individually.
The Choral Movements (III. & IV) include piano reductions to use for rehearsals and in performances when percussion is not available.

Individual movements are available at the links in each of the movement descriptions below. This product is for the entire full-length work.

Total duration approximately 55 minutes

Death Valley Symphony by Jenni Brandon gives voice to the stories of Death Valley National Park in California. Offered in a spirit of reverence and care, the work reflects our shared responsibility to protect our National Parks and preserve access to their enduring beauty. It also honors the Timbisha Shoshone People, whose deep presence, knowledge, and relationship with this land long predate its designation as a national park and continue to shape its living history.

I. Badwater Basin for Marimba Quartet is the first movement from Death Valley Symphony. It seemed like an appropriate place to start telling of the fascinating topography and history of this area as Badwater Basin is the lowest point in North America at 282 feet (86 meters) below sea level. This wide expanse of salt flats covers almost 200 square miles and contains a white sea of mostly sodium chloride, or table salt. Once an ancient inland lake, because the water had nowhere to go, sediment and salt accumulated over time, leaving behind the miles of an otherworldly landscape in the middle of the desert. There are several unique mallet techniques in this work that represent the sounds and space of Badwater Basin. The work begins and ends with the performers playing with mallets wrapped in cellophane to create a crunching sound, much like what it sounds like to walk across the salt flats in the basin. Other colors explored in this movement include the sound of the salt crystals expanding and popping in the desert heat by using slap mallets. A slap mallet is a mallet that is wrapped in a leather material and is somewhat flat like a spatula. At other times the performers use the shafts of their mallets to play, and this represents the delicate formations of these salt structures, as if you are crouching down to get a closer look. There’s also a joyful, rhythmic motion in this piece that represents the waves of the ancient lake that once filled this basin. This movement was commissioned by Heartland Marimba and a consortium of performers.

II. Clay Pipes and Spiral Shells: Duo Lin-Lynn (Weichen Lin and Lynn Vartan) commissioned and recorded “Clay Pipes and Spiral Shells,” for two marimbas with narration for their album STARS ABOVE. This movement celebrates the intertwining of Earth and sky, the tangible and the mystical, while acknowledging the Timbisha Shoshone Indians, the original stewards of the land long before European settlers arrived. The performance by the marimba duo alternates between a fluid and watery representation of Death Valley’s ancient, evaporated lakebed — which left behind fossilized spiral shells and the now endangered pupfish in isolated park areas — and more bell-like and tumultuous movement that signals a struggle, serving as a reminder that our actions reverberate through time and space. The narration uses the emotive poetry of Brandon Krieg which highlights the deep bond between humanity and the Earth, underscoring the belief that the essence of the planet exists within each of us, linking us all through its shared legacy.

III. Erosion’s Grotto for SATB Choir and Marimba Quartet evokes the vivid, mineral-rich landscape of Artist’s Palette in Death Valley National Park. The hills along Artist’s Palette Drive shimmer with a rainbow of colors including red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and pink created by volcanic deposits rich in iron oxides and chlorite. This ever shifting, erosion-carved terrain forms the visual and emotional foundation of the work. Setting the text of the original poem written by Brandon Krieg for this work, the opening lines “Rain-carved foothills, oxidized / mineral piles pooling shadows” immediately immerse us in this elemental world. The choir and marimba quartet function as equal partners throughout, together painting a world of water, sand, stone, and mineral rainbows of color. The marimba quartet opens with gestures that suggest rain striking sand and rock, then gather momentum like a car winding through the hills on Artists Palette Drive, as the choir gives voice to the unfolding landscape. As the music progresses, the boundary between observer and environment dissolves. Landscape and body reflect one another, culminating in a moment of heightened awareness in an ecstatic crossing, in the poem’s words, of the “blood-god barrier”—where all becomes one: to “be held in this beholding.” This movement flows into the next movement of Dark Sky as daylight shifts to darkness. Erosion’s Grotto was commissioned by the Gallagher-Bluedorn Performing Arts Center, Bel Canto Cedar Valley, directed by Alice Reid Pruisner, and Heartland Marimba.  It receives its world premiere on April 11 at the Gallagher-Bluedorn Performing Arts Center.

(Erosion’s Grotto is designed to flow attacca into Dark Sky if performing together)

IV. Dark Sky, the final movement of Death Valley Symphony, explores the beauty of Death Valley National Park’s pristine dark skies. For SATB Choir, Marimba Quartet, Percussion Ensemble, and Piano, this work sets the poem “The Stars Beyond the Stars” by Brandon Krieg

created expressly for this work. With some of the darkest night skies in the United States, Death Valley National Park is designated a “Dark Sky Park” by the Dark Sky International organization. Death Valley has been given the “Gold Tier” designation meaning that “astronomical objects seen there are available only to some of the darkest locations across the globe.” Using the colors of the ensemble, this work will take the listener on a journey through the world’s hottest place on Earth illuminated by the light of stars to see the park’s many animals, badlands, sand dunes, multi-hued hills and volcanic craters illuminated by the light of the night sky, and to gaze into the vastness of the universe. Dark Sky was commissioned by Heartland Marimba, Dr. Lynn Vartan and the Southern Utah

University Percussion Ensemble, Dr. Frank Kumor and the Kutztown University Percussion Ensemble, and the Wells-Rapp Center for Mallet Percussion Research to celebrate the inaugural year of the Wells-Rapp Center for Mallet Percussion Research at Kutztown University. Dark Sky was premiered on April 8 & 9, 2024 at Kutztown University in Pennsylvania. Coincidentally, the Total Solar Eclipse took place on April 8, turning the skies dark across the United States just hours before the World Premiere of Dark Sky!

 

 

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Instrumentation

 

Performance Option 1

Chamber Choir, SATB Choir & Piano Reduction – may be used for rehearsals in preparation for performance with full ensemble or Reduction may be used for performance on its own.

Performance Option 2

Chamber Choir and SATB Choir

Piano (separate piano part for use in performance with full ensemble)

Marimba 1
Crotales or Staff Bells* (with 2 bows)
4 Sound Plates (G, plus any three additional pitches)

Marimba 2
Anvil/Brake Drum

Marimba 3
Anvil/Brake Drum

Marimba 4
Anvil/Brake Drum

Percussion 1
Glockenspiel
Suspended Cymbal

Percussion 2
(Percussion 2 & 3 may be played by the same performer)
Glockenspiel or Tubaphone*
Congas
Crash Cymbals
Piccolo Woodblocks
Bass Drum

Percussion 3
Suspended Cymbal
Taiko
Triangle
Glockenspiel or Tubaphone*

Percussion 4
Crotales (with 2 bows)
Chimes
Temple Blocks
Thunder Sheet

Percussion 5
Xylophone
Tam-tam
Anvil/Brake Drum
Suspended Cymbal
Tambourine
Thunder Sheet

Percussion 6
Vibraphone (with 2 bows)
Thunder Sheet

 Percussion 7
Vibraphone or Steel Marimbaphone* (with 2 bows)
Timpani
Suspended Cymbal
Crash Cymbals
Piccolo Woodblocks
Temple Blocks

Performance Notes

Performance Notes – Video

There are videos available to for use during performances of Death Valley Symphony. These videos, created by Dale Parson, are non-synced videos, meaning that it can be started freely and is longer than the actual work so that it will continue to play after the work is finished. Contact the composer for more information.

Performance Notes – Choir

Option if only singing Dark Sky: Chamber Choir Placement suggestion at the beginning of the work through letter E: The Chamber Choir may sing from either behind the audience or surrounding the audience (if space permits). This is to give the sense of the vastness of the desert and the dark sky. There is time in the music for the Chamber Choir to move on stage and sing with the rest of the SATB choir at letter F. If the chamber choir is in place on stage at the beginning of the work, they may join the large choir in singing at letter E.

Letters JJ-PP – As the choir sings freely and overlaps on the word “lightning”, an  option is to have the Chamber choir slowly walk to where they were at the beginning of the piece. This will give the sense of lightning moving across the desert and across the sky, eventually fading away as a solo Chamber Choir Soprano sings freely at letter OO. Option is also to fade out as singing disappears and all that is left are the sounds of the thunder sheets.

Performance Notes – Percussion

Instruments marked with an asterisk* indicate a choice of instrument. The premiere performances took place at the Wells-Rapp Center for Mallet Percussion Research and certain unique instruments were available through the Center for this premiere. Traditional instruments are acceptable and should be used when alternate instruments are not available.

• Bows – it is suggested to use two bows for the overlapping effect of stars shooting across the sky.
• Anvil/Brake Drum – could also use a metal pipe and strike with a metal beater. Something metallic and loud.
• Thunder Sheets -high and low – a mix of ranges and colors
• Bass Drum – as low as possible (30 inch suggested)