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James and the Giant Peach

  1. Piccolo, flute, clarinet, soprano saxophone, alto saxophone
  2. Oboe, English horn, clarinet, tenor saxophone
  3. Clarinet, bass clarinet [to low D], bassoon, baritone saxophone [to low A]

10 comments

  1. Bret Pimentel says:

    Added based on information received from Matt Lin.

  2. Ron Nelson says:

    Can one assume the lead clarinet and saxophone lines are in Reed 3? AND if the theater can only hire 2 players, can 1 split reeds 1 and 3 with the 2nd player on reed 2?

  3. Matt Lin says:

    Ron, I am not sure as I did not play those parts. The clarinet part is not very prominent in Reed 3 but more in Reed 2. The saxophone part, especially soprano is more exposed in Reed 3.

    If your theatre is renting, they do have an entire recorded version of the show. Because with only two woodwind players, you’re still missing about 10 brass and string players.

    • Ron Nelson says:

      I intended to say 2 woodwind players. I’m sure there will be 2-3 brass and a violin or 2.

    • Ron Nelson says:

      And how tough is the flute/picc book?

      • Matt Lin says:

        Ah okay. The woodwinds still play a big role in this musical and I don’t know if 2 players can handle it.

        The flute/piccolo isn’t used too extensively in this musical. There is one flute solo towards the beginning of the show, in “Nightmare.” It’s slow and the most difficult part is probably slurring from high A to high E. Then you also switch to piccolo in that same song, not tricky but there’s some weird time signatures. Once you get the feel of it, it’s very easy.

        Another exposed flute solo in “Property of Spiker and Sponge,” It’s 3-5 measures long, very fast, very high with some awkward fingerings and ending in a tremolo. https://youtu.be/CxUCWaVMWwo?t=3m7s at 3:07. Both flute players I played with struggled with this one.

        In “Our Adventure Begins” there are a lot of scales on piccolo, I couldn’t tell if they were chromatic but they were fast. I know the song ends in a fast chromatic scale for the clarinet + piccolo.

        That’s basically all the difficult parts on the flute/piccolo book. Everything else is straight forward and easy.

  4. Ron Nelson says:

    Bret,

    I’m doing a production of JAMES next month. I have the 3 reed books of the current MTI rental: the break down is:

    Reed 1: Piccolo, Flute,Clarinet, Soprano Sax, Alto Sax
    Reed 2:Oboe, English Horn, Clarinet, Tenor Sax
    Reed 3: Clarinet, Bass Clarinet, Bassoon, Baritone Sax

  5. Scott Porreca says:

    I just finish a run on reed 3. Low A bari is required. Low Eb bass clarinet is fine. There is one low D in the show. The book is primarily bari sax and bassoon. There are two numbers on bass clarinet but one is an important part (#14 Shake It Up). Clarinet is scattered through the book. There are a couple of lead/solo lines on clarinet. The lead clarinet is passed around between all the books.

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