Overture to Lysistrata (for wind ensemble) (2005)

Composer Note
Every new piece is something of a reaction to the the piece you wrote before. After the highly intimate and domestic drama that was my first opera, Little Women, I wanted to write something much more overtly theatrical; something that felt, both in timbre and character, brassier. Adapting my second opera from Lysistrata, Aristophanes’ indispensable comedy of sex and politics, gave me my opportunity. In its original scoring, this Overture to Lysistrata — drawn from its heroine’s first cabaletta, its second lady’s aria of longing, and the raucous finale of the first act — already saluted the wind orchestra, what with its two saxophones (alto and baritone) and lavish use of mallet percussion. But here, Peter Stanley Martin’s deft and artful arrangement perhaps expresses the character of the music even more eloquently than the orchestral version does.

— Mark Adamo