Composer Jennifer Jolley (b. 1981) teaches composition at Lehman College in New York City. Her music spans multiple genres, from choral and wind band works to electronic chamber and flexible music. Her music often addresses provocative subject matter, from school shootings to climate change to #MeToo to COVID-19. This approach speaks to performers and audiences everywhere: her music has been performed around the world, and she has taken part in numerous composer residencies and commissions. She is also an advocate for new music and underrepresented composers, writing for NewMusicBox and advising the Institute for Composer Diversity. Her blog addresses (and normalizes) the rejection and failure that composers often face. She has bios at her website, Lehman College, the Interlochen Center for the Arts, and the American Composers Forum, which also features an interview with her.
Jolley wrote Last Stage to Red Rock as part of the Mason Schools Foundation Above & Beyond Beginning Band Commission Project in 2016. It is “dedicated to Micah Ewing and the Mason Schools Foundation, Mason, Ohio.” According to her program notes, “Last Stage to Red Rock was taken from the first chapter of Quentin Tarantino’s film The Hateful Eight. In this scene, Major Marquis Warren, O.B. Jackson, John Ruth, Daisy Domergue, and the new sheriff of Red Rock Chris Mannix all board the last stagecoach to Red Rock, trying to outrun the impending blizzard of doom.” (Links added by me.) Here it is in performance, with a score to follow along in the video:
More info on the piece is available at Jolley’s website, J. W. Pepper, the Wind Repertory Project, and Murphy Music Press (both full band and flex versions.)