Did you know that there is a concert based on A Land Remembered? It was composed by Larry Clark of Lakeland, Florida in 2009. I discovered this concert by accident when a Google Alert I have set for the term “A Land Remembered” turned it up. I contacted Larry Clark and got his permission to post the recording on this site, as well as a link to the .pdf file of the music. It was published by Carl Fisher music. You find links on this page; scroll down to “L” for Land Remembered.
According to Clark, “I was commissioned to write the concert band piece “A Land Remembered” by the Horace Mann Middle School Band in Brandon, Florida. Their band director Kevin Fuller wanted to commission a musical work and have the students work with a living composer, but he also wanted to involve the whole school in the project. So, “A Land Remembered” was selected as the book that many students in the school would read and I would write a piece that would musically depict some of the things from the story. At the premiere performance of the piece on May 11, 2009 I conducted the Mann Middle School Band. Before the concert they had open exhibits to writings and art projects and even some food by the students that were based on the book. It was a very nice event and very educational.”
Clark says that it is not meant to tell specifically any specific events from the novel, but just to depict musically some of the thoughts and scenes that come to mind as a person reads the novel. The piece is set in three continuous movements, each depicting elements of the story, from the open fanfare, “A New Life in a New Land” to the beautiful “On the Prairie” and the strident final movement, “Hardships on the Rugged Frontier.”
“Being a fourth generation Floridian myself,” Clark says, “the book resonated with me as it contains similar stories that I had heard in my childhood about old Florida. My Great-Grand Father was an early settler to the New Port Richey area. He was also a cattle rancher from South Carolina that brought his cattle down in the winter eat grass before moving here permanently.”
You can listen to a recording of the concert here, and here is a link to the music.