Abstract

While composer John Philip Sousa is widely known for his marches, his operettas are relatively unknown and unperformed. This is due to a lack of published editions of these operettas. The goal of this project was to input hand-written scores of an operetta by Sousa into notational software to be published and performed. The original manuscripts are not currently performable, as they are inconsistent, difficult to read, and only available as copies from the archives by request. The score “Selections from The Bride Elect,” an arrangement for wind band by Sousa of numbers from his operetta, was input and edited into a new performance edition. By creating notation that is edited, easy to read, and readily available, a modern performance of the operetta is possible. This process required editing to unify inconsistencies throughout the parts and alignment of the manuscript score with a published reduction of the operetta in order to ensure a performance as close to the original score as possible.