Rushmore - BAR0121956 | Music

"Rushmore - A Symphonic Prologue for Winds" was commissioned by Paul and Lois Hedge, co-directors of the Rushmore Summer Music Camp in South Dakota, on the occasion of the camp's 10th anniversary year, in 1980. It was first performed by the Rushmore Music Camp Symphonic Band under the direction of Kenneth Bloomquist, on August 16th, 1980, at the concluding concert of the session in the amphitheater at Mount Rushmore.

A brooding mystic opening, representing perhaps the four great faces carved in stone gazing over the plains of America, introduces a broad melodic line that is meant to symbolize the inner strength and calm majesty represented by these four great Americans as guardians of the tradition and faith in the freedom of man.
As this theme is developed, rising ever higher in the band's registers, echoes of the opening fanfare enter, leading to a combination of this theme together with "America, the Beautiful", and bringing the work to a close in all the majesty and colors of which the modern concert band or wind ensemble is capable.