Wind Ensemble

Brass Choir

Choir

Solo Works

Music for Two

Chamber Music for Larger Ensembles

Tip of the Spear (2019) for trombone choir (8 parts: 6 tenor, 2 bass)
Heroic Brew (2018) for horn choir (6 parts)
Moonlight Rhapsody (2016) for oboe, viola, and piano
Up To No Good (2015) for woodwind quintet

Duration: 7’00”

First three score pages (pdf)

Excerpt 1            Excerpt 2            

Up to No Good was commissioned by the East Winds Quintet at Lehigh University as part of its sesquicentennial celebration in 2016. As a Lehigh alumnus, this was a very special honor for me, and it made sense for me to include some old reminiscences from my Lehigh days in the program notes for the premiere performance:

I have carried around a composition folder since my undergraduate years at Lehigh University, and recently I have gotten into the habit of taping a picture to the front for motivation. The picture always has something to do with the new piece I am working on—something to help generate ideas or to help imagine the premiere performance. In the case of Up to No Good, I found a beautiful photo of the Baker Auditorium stage that continually helped motivate me to get to work. Eventually looking at that picture all the time helped dislodge an old Lehigh memory…a memory that I am not necessarily proud of and probably should not be written down, but here goes. While Zoellner Arts Center was under construction, a good friend (another “smart” future professor) and I snuck into the partially built building to get a closer look and do some exploring. It was extremely cool…but in retrospect, WOW was that dangerous and stupid! By this point in time, the music I had already written for my new piece had a generally light quality, but I began to notice that parts of it sounded a little sneaky, like it was creeping around someplace that maybe it did not belong. When it’s all said and done, Up to No Good is not a bad piece. It just likes to get in a little bit of trouble.

Contact the composer directly to inquire about score/parts: mikedambrosio@gmail.com

Homage (2014) for trumpet sextet
Inosculation (2014) for string quartet
Compressionism (2012) for trumpet sextet
Cross Face Cradle (2010) for clarinet, trumpet, viola, piano, and percussion
Ice Town (2009) for trumpet sextet
OK, Then AL (2005) for brass quintet
The Belfry (2001) for woodwind quintet and vibraphone
The Last Sunset (2000) for trumpet, trombone, and piano
Poetics (1999) for flute, clarinet, bassoon, piano, and marimba
What Love Tells Me (1999) for 2 horns and organ
Prelude and Scherzo (1995) for brass quintet