DANIEL AND SNAKEMAN

A Musical Story for Children

Composed: 2019 (revised 2021)
Duration: 22 - 28 minutes
Instrumentation: flute, oboe, B flat clarinet, horn, bassoon, storyteller

PROGRAM NOTES

Daniel and Snakeman is a story with music for children K through 4th grade. The various characters in the story are represented by different instruments - Daniel by horn, Wiggy by clarinet, Faduma by oboe, Elizabeth by flute, and Snakeman by bassoon. The story is about an 11 year-old boy, Daniel, who lives in a future time when most people of all types have learned to live together peacefully, liking and respecting each other's differences. But there are still some hold-overs from the past, like someone they call Snakeman, who hates seeing people who are different from each other having fun together. Daniel and his friend Wiggy, a talking bat, are trying to find their friends, Fadumo and Elizabeth who have been captured by Snakeman. They find Snakeman’s fortress and find a way inside the caves underneath the fortress.  They can hear the sound of Faduma and Elizabeth’s music way in the distance. Following the sound of the music through passageways, they enter a cave-like room where their friends and others are imprisoned. They find a way to capture Snakeman and then use the blaster in Daniel's ZX89 Magnetizing Power Zoomer to cut the prison bars freeing all the people. 

The story lines can be read by members of the quintet, or by a narrator.

REVIEWS  
(of original orchestral version)

"Music's power to unite is one of the key messages in Margaret Brouwer's Daniel and Snakeman, a disarming piece for listeners of all ages...Daniel abounds in charming tunes that help catapult Brouwer's story about the eponymous hero who faces nasty, intolerant Snakeman and releases the villain's underground population of people of many cultures."  -Donald Rosenberg, Cleveland: The Plain Dealer, May 10, 2011 

A fairytale filled with good versus evil, Daniel and Snakeman is told in a way that can be understood and respected by young and old. It is a true work of noble and kind innocence as expressed through Ms. Brouwer’s charismatic text and compositional ingenuity…. giving distinction to her characters with lush harmonies, beautiful melodies, jazzy licks….  - J.D. Goddard, www.clevelandclassical.com, May 11, 2011