John Towner Williams (born February 8, 1932) is a prolific American composer, conductor, and pianist. In a career spanning six decades, he has composed many of the most recognizable film scores in the history of motion pictures, including those for the Star Wars Saga, Superman, the Indiana Jones films, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Jurassic Park, Schindler's List,  and three Harry Potter films. He has composed the music for all but one of director Steven Spielberg's feature films. Other notable works by Williams include theme music for four Olympic Games, the NBC Nightly News, the rededication of the Statue of Liberty, the DreamWorks Pictures production logo, and the television series Lost in Space. Williams has also composed numerous classical concerti, and he served as the principal conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra from 1980 to 1993. Williams has won five Academy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, seven BAFTA Awards, and 21 Grammy Awards. With 45 Academy Award nominations, Williams is, together with composer Alfred Newman, the second most nominated person, after Walt Disney. Williams was inducted into the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame in 2000, and was a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors in 2004.

The three symphonic marches included in this medley are the main themes of two famous movie, Indiana Johns and Star War Saga, plus the Hymn of the Olimpic Games. Trumpets and brass winds in general, are the main characters as often in Williams music. The melodies are very popular and this makes this piece of music very easy and pleasant to listen for the audience

Gioacchino Rossini wrote this "Fanfara per la Corona d’Italia" in occasion of its mention as  in occasione della nomina a Cavaliere di Gran Croce della Corona d’Italia: il brano (che associa il tipico virtuosismo strumentale rossiniano al gusto per un suono “chiaro” caratteristico della strumentazione ottocentesca per banda) venne eseguito in presenza dell’autore e del re da numerose bande militari, per un totale di oltre 100 esecutori. L’opera fu riscoperta nel 1978 nella biblioteca del British Museum da William A. Schaefer (uno dei più autorevoli studiosi della musica per fiati), che ne ha curato l’edizione moderna col titolo di “Scherzo for band”.

Il pezzo è presente nel reportorio della Banda Cittadina di Darfo Boario Terme da circa 20 anni.

Fabrizio de Andre, Italian chansonnier italiano born in Genova in 1940, died in Milan in 1999. He is one of the best examples of the modern Italian music, and this is the main reason why this piece of music has been inserted in the program to be performed in the Netherlands in September 2010. He reached the success in the Sixties as author of "La canzone di Marinella" (Marinella songs) the sad story of a girl who died very young. In those years, full of happiness and hope in the future this was quite unsual and mediately captured the attention of the musical critics in Italy. And De Andre' went on that way for all its life, fullowing his own path, beating the conformism by singing (and playing) the very last ones, prostitutes and thieves, poor and rejected by the society. Very modern but never missing the tradition represented in particular by the Italian folk music, constant source of inspiration for him. In 2010 Patti Smith, the American singer, has included 3 De Andre songs (translated into English) in her new album.

This medley starts with the rythm of the tarantella; "Don Raffaé" is the title of the song which is the story of a mafia "boss" (now in the carcer of Poggioreale) told by his "assistant" Pasquale Cafiero. The second melody is "La Canzone dell'amore perduto" (The Song of the lost love) and speaks about a love which is fading away for the laws of nature and time - the music is by Georg Philipp Telemann, concert for trumpet and orchestra. The medley is closed by "Volta la carta" (Turn the card) which take inspiration by a folk song of Sardinia (in dialect the tiple is "Ma chi boll")

Giovanni Orsomando (born in Casapulla December 29 1895, died in Rome, September 26 1988) has been an important Italian composer and band director, one of the most famous author of marches and original band music. He studied clarinet for many years playing as solo in the Infantry Band (being him an officer). He graduated in 1922 in band composition and instrumentation by the San Pietro School of Music at Majella, Naple. He immediately reach the success by the symphonic march Annina, dedicated to his wife. He lived most of his life in Caserta, directing bands, teaching and composing. He was director of Rome Band and in the very few years of his life he moved to Rome where he died.

"Gaia" was written in 1951 and it was a good example of symphonic march where the clarinets are the main characters coadiuvated by the brasses. The melody is very nice and shows some unsual musical solutions which lead to a certain difficulty of the execution, both technically and in the intonation. This is probably why this piece of music was chosen in the past for Bands contests, especially in the Cnetre and south of Italy.

Giovanni Orsomando's daughter, Nicoletta, was a very famous speaker at the Italian public TV who started to work in the '50 and retired few years ago.

Nino Rota, born in Milan in 1911 and died in Rome in 1979 was a world-renowned Italian composer and academic who is best known for his film scores, notably for the films of Federico Fellini and Luchino Visconti. He also composed the music for two of Franco Zeffirelli's Shakespeare films, and for the first two films of Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather trilogy, receiving for the latter the Academy Award for Best original Score in 1974. During his long career Rota wrote more than 150 scores ten operas, five ballets and dozens of other orchestral, choral and chamber works, the best known being his string concerto. He also composed the music for many theatre productions by Visconti and Zeffirelli as well as maintaining a long teaching career at the Liceo Musicale in Bari, Italy, where he was the director for almost 30 years.

It has been successfully argued many times that no film has had as much impact on cinema as Francis Ford Coppola's original The Godfather, adaptation of Mario Puzo's best selling and controvertial novel. The 1972 powerhouse not only defined the entire subsequent genre of mob-related films, but remains a brutally memorable exhibit of dramatic storytelling at its most compelling. The story of the now famous trilogy of films follows the progression of the original New York mafia families in their efforts to survive and adapt in the times from the 1900's to the 1990's. The trilogy ultimately defines itself as the story of Michael Corleone, desperate to retain the Sicilian traditions of his father while moving the family forward into these new, more global avenues of wealth. His ultimate failure, foreshadowed in his ascension in The Godfather and progressively more shocking in the endings of the two sequels, guides the music of these films to a similarly depressing end. Like the films, the work of Nino Rota and Carmine Coppola for the soundtracks of these productions is engrained in the memory of the mainstream, defining the sound of mafia music much like the characters influenced later incarnations of essentially the same idea. If you boil down the plot elements of The Godfather to their most basic ingredients, they would be tradition, love, and fear. Rota's score for the film perfectly embodies these three aspects of the story, licensing ten or so existing pieces for source usage. Carmine Coppola, the director's father, wrote a small amount of original source material for The Godfather, increasing his efforts in this regard as the trilogy progressed.

Philip Sparke was born in London and studied composition, trumpet and piano at the Royal College of Music, where he gained an ARCM. He has written for brass band championships in New Zealand, Switzerland, Holland, Australia and the UK, including three times for the National Finals at the Royal Albert Hall, and his test pieces are constantly in use wherever brass bands can be found. In 1996 the US Air Force Band commissioned and recorded Dance Movements, which won the prestigious Sudler Prize in 1997. In September 2000 he was awarded the Iles Medal of the Worshipful Company of Musicians for his services to brass bands. In 2005 Music of the Spheres won the National Band Association/William D. Revelli Memorial Band Composition Contest. His conducting and adjudicating activities have taken him to most European countries, Scandinavia, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Canada and the USA. In May 2000, he took the major step of becoming a full-time composer by founding his own publishing company, Anglo Music Press. The company is devoted to publishing his brass band, concert band, fanfare band and instrumental publications as well as recordings dedicated to his latest works.

II. Hanerot Halalu & Ba’olam Haba - Hanerot Halalu is sung to accompany the lighting of candles at Hanukkah and Ba’olam Haba is set to words which speak of the world to come, which can mean either the world after death or the world that is to follow the messianic millennium.

Michael Giacchino is the author of the soundtrack of the Pixar cartoon Ratatouille. The French setting is underlined by all melodies. The movie opens with a nice sweet song about the difficulties of life and desire of changes. The sounds chosen for the adventures of Remi - a french mouse who wants to be a chef - seems to be taken directly from the cartoons of the '40, '50 and '60. The breath is classic somewhere jazz, following very well the plot of the movie and given the audience sometimes lightness or fun or emotion. The influences of the French composer Georges Delerue, of the jazz musician Claude Bolling and of Carl Stalling (author of some Looney Tunes soundtracks) are heavy and allow the audience to catch all the joie de vivre of Paris, as shown in the cartoon. Sounds, smells, colours, tastes recall nostagically an age full of romanticism and charme.  

Giacchino will win the Academy Awards in 2010, for the soundtrack of another cartoon, "Up".

The woodwinds, especially flutes, are the main characters of this arrangement for simphonic band.

This is one of the piece of music Darfo Band has performed more during the last 20 years, both in Italy and abroad. And the reason is evident ... Giuseppe Verdi is still one of the most famous composer in Italy. Last year, a poll of the public TV declared him as the second most important Italian (after Leonardo da Vinci). Abroad, music (and in particular opera) together with art, food fashion are the main features of the Italian style, and represent the positive picture of our country. And Giuseppe Verdi is the king of the opera, having composed masperpieces such as "Aida" "La Traviata" "Il Nabucco "Il Rigoletto "Il Trovatore". Darfo Band performed this piece of music in Germany twice, one in 1990 in Herrember (close to Stuttgard) and second in Aue (close to Dresden) in 1993. It is a medley of famous "Arie" taken from different operas. The challenge to the audience is to recongnise all of them