America the Beautiful, arranged by Carmen Dragon. The very best arrangement. Happy 4th!!
I was fortunate enough to play this piece with the great Carmen Dragon conducting at high school music camp at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, KS, in the summer of 1971. He was a great guy and this is a brilliant arrangement. He was there at our first week of music camp.
Everyone was nervous and afraid we wouldn't play well enough for him. We also played the finale of Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony, which is a real barn burner, on this program. He immediately put everyone at ease and was very genial, as well as a fine conductor.
Those of you who are old enough will remember that they played this piece on TV when they signed off at midnight or one a.m. or whatever.
It's gorgeous and I have fond memories of what a friendly, nice man Carmen Dragon was.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmen_Dragon
He conducted the Glendale Symphony Orchestra and wrote music for movies (Invasion of the Body Snatchers) and for TV (Dr. Kildare).
He looked approximately like this when I met him over 40 years ago.
Trivia: He was the father of Daryl Dragon, the Captain in The Captain and Tennille "Love Will Keep Us Together".