Christian Kilgore

A Message from the Composer

Moon River has been my first-time diving into arranging a work for marimba. So many great marimbaist have done this in the past and have inspired me to try it myself. During my time in undergrad, my friend, Nicholas Bryant, gave me the idea to arrange this tune. As much as I loved the idea and thought it would work well on the instrument, I was at no match for the task. I knew very little about jazz theory and had no real experience improvising. It wasn’t until I was in my Masters, studying with Brian Mueller, that I felt that I could do the song justice. I began studying and improvising over the work and it quickly became a favorite of mine that somehow never got old. Through a lot of experimenting and thoughtful input from Dr. Mueller, I put together the arrangement you see here today. Audrey Hepburn’s version of the tune was a huge inspiration and I would encourage anyone hoping to do this work justice to base their interpretation on her recording. My arrangement intends not only to show off the musical virtuosity of the performer, but to leave audiences humming this iconic melody. I hope that through this work, everyone involved can reflect and find a little nostalgia in Moon River.

- Christian Kilgore