Christopher Tucker: Music Gallery

VALOR OF THE MNC-I

(for symphonic band)

2008 • Estimated timing: 3'00" • Grade 4
[Published by TMW Press/Southern Music Company]
[Many thanks to Eugene Corporon and the
North Texas Wind Symphony for making this recording]

Valor of the MNC-I is a concert march composed in tribute to the United States military men and women who have served and will serve in Baghdad, Iraq as a part of MNC-I (Multi-National Corps Iraq), OIF (Operation Iraqi Freedom). The work is further dedicated to my father COL Leo D. Tucker.

This letter was written by the composer on January 30, 2008 addressed to the U.S. Military Men and Women of MNC-I.

"I would like to extend my gratitude and deepest thanks to you for your service and sacrifice to providing stability to those who need it, to make certain the safety of our own, to ensure the sanctity of our great country and to further the cause of freedom. I am an Army son who benefits from the burden you endure, while praising the courage you exemplify and understanding the commitment you fulfill to providing those benefits. Because your admirable duty affords me the opportunity, I live my life to the fullest as best I can. I am honored to know you and to call you my hero. I thank you and hope you accept this as a small token of my appreciation for what you do.

I am a music composer and performer. When surgery in high school excluded me from joining the military as a musician, I desperately searched over the years for a means, my own personal contribution, to supporting our military. It was the least I could do. My father provided the chance for involvement with a simple request.

In September of 2007, COL Leo D. Tucker II asked me to compose a concert march in tribute to the United States military men and women who have served and will serve in Baghdad, Iraq as a part of MNC-I, OIF. A march that had to, most importantly, be music a concert band could perform during parade ceremonies and troop events in support of military activities. A composition that illustrated musically the cause and course, which had to be maintained, the compassion exuded by MNC-I providing aid and comfort to the people of Iraq, the necessary battle fought allowing the means for peace to follow, and the overwhelming effect freedom will have in the area (the final phrase of the march includes a quote from John Philip Sousa’s Hail to the Spirit of Liberty). I have attempted to fulfill all these provisions in my new work titled Valor of the MNC-I.

My very best,
Christopher Tucker"