Riu Riu Chiu | ORIGINAL CONCERT BAND ARRANGEMENT |

"Riu Riu Chiu" is a 16th century villancico (renaissance Spanish art song) that has become popular as a Christmas carol. It is often attributed to the Catalonian composer Mateo Flecha (1481-1553); however, claim has not been verified.

I wrote this arrangement of "Riu Riu Chiu" for concert band in an orchestration class I took during my undergrad. It features a lot of Spanish and Latin American percussion (such as claves, castanets, and timbales), as well as other elements of Spanish music such as toreador-like trumpet fanfares. I also tried to imitate some of the sounds of renaissance instruments such as shawms, sackbuts, and fifes.

Recording this project took approximately seven months, from July 2020 to January 2021. There are 36 individual tracks, and anywhere between 11-25 different instruments (depending on how you count them!). Huge thank you to Highwood Lutheran Church for allowing me to use their space and accommodating for my very long recording sessions! Also to Calgary Christian High School for letting me borrow most of the instruments and audio equipment used in this video.

Thanks for watching!

Equipment used:
Audio Software: Steinberg Sequel III
Video Software: Adobe Premiere Elements
Audio Interface: Avid Mbox
Mics: two Apex 135 phantom powered mics

[joyrobinsonmusic]

Why do I get the feeling the list of instruments you DON'T play is smaller than the list of those that you do? Wow! Very impressive!

[peterb]

Another super job, not only of playing, but also arranging this beautiful carol. Your choice of instrument combinations produces some very interesting sounds. I love the high woodwinds and then the low brass and bassoons. Love it. Thanks for sharing, Sam.

[silkysalamander]

Fantastic job! So happy to see another ensemble video. Keep up the amazing work 👍

[nillawafer]

My cousin you are an entire band 😁😁
You're so cool 😎

[kimpclimate]

Wow! well done learning every one of those instruments so well! Very nice arrangement.

[williamdaniels]

Sounds great, and very cool to see another video from you

[pukalo]

My band performed this piece in our 2021 Christmas concert, and this December we are performing another piece composed by you.

[NOLJAK]

Starting @ 1:39 through 2:08 had me! Yay all brass, and low reeds, @ percussion that’s my favorite part! I’m am primarily a trombone player in the brass section and I play with the whole brass section and low woodwinds as well in those rolls! Good stuff yo. Any ways good job I love it man I even play a lot of those instruments I’m back multi instrumentalist my self I played trombone for the past 10 and a half years since 5th grade in fall 2009 and I graduated high school spring 2017 and I started collecting brass and woodwind instruments in fall of 2017 and I got them off of eBay it took the past 3 & a half years to get all of them do to cost!
Instrument I have now are,
Flute, oboe, bassoon, clarinet, bass clarinet, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, trumpet, French horn, trombone, baritone/euphonium, tuba, & a percussion kit that includes a practice drum pad & glockenspiel w/sticks & mallets with a stand!. And I do plan on getting the bari sax sometime later in the future but in the mean time good video!. Keep up the good work I’m a big concert band person and I’ve been a fond of each and everyone of the instruments involved in that group. What fun

[sherrieschlecker]

Sam, if you see this, please sign up for projects of the Virtual Concert Band. You could play every part!

[aldenvines]

Brother where can we get this sheet music?

[debussywhatisee]

Excellent job! I had to research this carol for a project in school, and this was the band performance that I was missing for it.