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Ground Breaker
Work for Orchestra

Instrumentation: 2 (2nd pic)-2-2-2, 4-3-3-1, timp, 2 perc, construction ensemble (four players), str
Duration: 7 minutes

"Bump-and-grind music earned respectibility...on a dusty construction site...A new
seven minute overture featuring soloists on grinder, troweler, brick saw, tamper, mortar
mixer, .38 caliber nail gun and an unlikely instrument called the weldaphone...The tempo
of Ground Breaker is generally swift, the beat strong and the overall impression that of a
construction site with interacting sets of sounds, including 'conversations' between the machinery
and conventional instruments."
--Dan Wascoe, Jr. Minneapolis Star and Tribune

"What can you expect when you blend the sweet strains of violins, flutes and trombones
with the crunching cacophony of a cement troweler, a mortar mixer, a grinder, an air
chisel, a tamper, a brick saw and an automatic air-nailer?...The occasion was the
ground-breaking ceremony for an $80 million hotel and shopping mall
development...Unconventional was what the developers wanted...The result was a piece
that starts out with the rhythmic swoosh-swoosh-swoosh of a giant cement trowler and
ends with a single sharp shot from a nail gun."
--Les Suzukamo, St. Paul Pioneer Press Dispatch

"Ground Breaker...employsa fairly standard orchestration with the additional of a
'construction ensemble'- a group of four construction workers who play a total of eight
different construction instruments...Celbratory in nature...construction instruments are
used in such a way as to supplement and complement the activites of the orchestra...In
every instance the instruments, whether they be of the construction trade or the
symphony orchestra, are treated in a musical manner with special attention to their unique
characteristics and collective contributions.
--Ground Breaker Program Notes

Publisher: Paulus Publications
Recording: Promotional Recording Available

Performances: Minneapolis Pop Orchestra, 1987 and 1998

Commissioned by St. Louis Centre for the dedication of "On The Avenue"

World Premiere: Minneapolis Pop Orchestra, October 7, 1987
Conductor: Jere Lantz