Commissioned by the Colorado Jazz Repertory Orchestra and featured on their 2025 album Golden Lady, Annie Booth’s Tundra is both a musical landscape and a personal reflection. Booth wrote the piece just weeks after the birth of her daughter, often composing with her newborn napping on her chest. The experience of early motherhood—simultaneously disorienting and transformative—shaped the work’s emotional core.
Tundra is a wonderful feature for an ensemble's pianist, who hauntingly starts and ends the piece and for whom there is a featured improvised solo section. Propelled by an energetic and modern drum ’n’ bass groove, the piano solo leads to one of Annie’s favorite moments: an a cappella trombone choir that captures the stark beauty and solitude of the tundra itself. At its heart, Tundra is a lyrical journey across a vast, frozen expanse.
Level: College
5 saxes/4 trumpets/4 trombones/guitar, piano, bass, drums
Optional parts included: vocals (wordless), vibraphone
Highest note for lead trumpet: Concert Eb6 (written high F)
Highest note for lead trombone: Concert Bb4
Vocal range (optional vocal part): G#3-E5
Commissioned by the Colorado Jazz Repertory Orchestra and featured on their 2025 album Golden Lady, Annie Booth’s Tundra is both a musical landscape and a personal reflection. Booth wrote the piece just weeks after the birth of her daughter, often composing with her newborn napping on her chest. The experience of early motherhood—simultaneously disorienting and transformative—shaped the work’s emotional core.
Tundra is a wonderful feature for an ensemble's pianist, who hauntingly starts and ends the piece and for whom there is a featured improvised solo section. Propelled by an energetic and modern drum ’n’ bass groove, the piano solo leads to one of Annie’s favorite moments: an a cappella trombone choir that captures the stark beauty and solitude of the tundra itself. At its heart, Tundra is a lyrical journey across a vast, frozen expanse.
Level: College
5 saxes/4 trumpets/4 trombones/guitar, piano, bass, drums
Optional parts included: vocals (wordless), vibraphone
Highest note for lead trumpet: Concert Eb6 (written high F)
Highest note for lead trombone: Concert Bb4
Vocal range (optional vocal part): G#3-E5
Score follow video for Tundra
