ABOUT ME

I am a retired public school band director. I am also a composer/arranger (ASCAP), working primarily in the areas of church music and instrumental music for use in schools and colleges. Although I have been writing for most of my life, promoting my work was never much of a priority for me during my teaching years. But now, in retirement, I want to introduce my music and make it  available on a wider basis.

For some information about my training and background, here is the third-person vita that I use wherever a couple paragraphs about my resumé are needed. It goes on programs and most of my trade publications:


Richard E Brown, a native of New York State, has been active as a composer-arranger and music educator for many years. His training includes MM and DM degrees in composition from Florida State University, as well as a BA  in music education from Central College, which named him a Distinguished Alumnus in 1983. His principal composition studies were with Carlisle Floyd, John Boda, and Charles Carter. He is a member of ASCAP, and is represented in the catalogs of several trade publishers, as well as his own imprint, Dacker Music.

His output includes numerous works for concert band and orchestra, instrumental solos and ensembles, church music, piano solos, and scores for ballet, opera, and musical theater. Having taught in public schools in Iowa, Texas, New Mexico, Oregon, and Washington, Dr. Brown now lives in the Puget Sound area, where he is composer-in-residence with the Shoreline Concert Band.

Retired from teaching, he can often be found in the mountains indulging his other passions, hiking and climbing.


More of my background information can be found in the form of autobiographical anecdotes located in the Featured Work Archives, where a series of essays on various compositions and arrangements that I originally posted on my Facebook page are reproduced.



ABOUT DACKER MUSIC

Dacker Music  is my personal music  imprint. 
It is self-distributed and sold primarily through J.W. Pepper, where you can order either printed or download editions.  Most of the titles are now also available in download-only editions from Sheet Music Plus. Links for both sources are provided in the Annotated Catalog.

The name comes from the screen name I use on the NWHikers and flickr websites. It is derived from my strong identification with my roots, and simply means that, as a native of the Adirondacks (or "dacks," as they are commonly called), I am by definition a "dacker."

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ORDERING MY MUSIC

I created this website to promote my music and make it available to everyone, but it is not  in the business of directly selling music on line.  

To preview and/or buy music, please go to my Annotated Catalog, which is the heart of this website. There are descriptions there of all of my available compositions and arrangements, both Dacker and trade publications, with links to where you can order them. All links are brown and should open in a new tab.

On the J.W. Pepper listing for each Dacker publication, there is a preview feature that lets you look at the complete score while listening to a recording. Click on the picture of the cover in the upper left to enlarge it, then click the arrows to turn pages. The recording should play automatically. You can order the music either in regular printed edition or for download. The Sheet Music Plus listings offer only download editions.

A recording is also included on this website for each title. I don’t presently have usable live recordings of everything, and have substituted VST realizations to fill in for those that lack one. Until I manage to build a more complete library of good live recordings, the VST recordings are actually quite realistic. 

Just click on the link that says "recording," and it should open in a new tab and start playing.  The recordings are all mp3 format.