Patriotic Overture

In 1992 I arranged a patriotic musical called “From Sea to Shining Sea”. As I was working on the choral arrangements for this musical, I had a sense that I needed to write an overture, but I was running out of time to complete all of the arrangements before we had to record them in the studio. As I traveled to Indianapolis to record the musical, I still had this urge to include an overture, but time had run out.

I arrived at the recording studio the day before we were scheduled to record, and I had this wild idea to write the entire overture in one night. (What was I thinking?!)

Believe it or not, I did it.

I would normally spend 2-3 full days creating an arrangement, but God gave me the inspiration that I needed to create the entire arrangement in one night. We were able to record the overture at the end of the recording the next day.

The overture included classic American patriotic songs like, “Yankee Doodle”, “Columbia, the Gym of the Ocean”, “When Johnny Comes Marching Home”, and “America the Beautiful”. Even though the overture was in one tempo, it came off with a rousing flair of energy, just like you would expect a Patriotic overture to be.

I still love using this overture in Patriotic themed concerts!