I was approached by Lisa Garner, professor of flute at Texas Tech University to write a work for flute and wind orchestra whilst I was performing at the American National Flute Association conference in Las Vegas in 2003. She had assembled a consortium of 19 universities and the Brannen Cooper foundation to fund a 12 minute piece, in the event I decided to add a third movement and turn the work into a concerto.
I had never written anything for wind orchestra before and was quite daunted at the prospect of having thirty odd wind instruments supporting a flute. Impossible! was my initial reaction - the flute will never be heard - so I did some research and came across "Lindisfarne Rhapsody" written for the same combination in 1997 by Philip Sparke which worked very well. Before setting down to work I had a conversation with wind band guru Tim Reynish whilst we were both working on separate projects at the University of Kentucky. Being aware of my "jazz leanings" he ordered me to infuse some jazz into the project "as the wind orchestra repertoire needs it..." This was a red rag to a bull which gave me the green light to write something blue... I realised that hidden within the wind orchestra is a full big band, and, having written a lot for big band previously started to think of the orchestra as an augmented big band. Which of course it isn't, but as a starting point this put me more into my compositional comfort zone.
It was my intention to score as lightly as possible when accompanying the flute but also to give the whole band something to get their teeth into with large tutti sections interspersed. I was aware of the fact that the whole project was funded from the USA and consequently put in a few musical ideas associated with that country such as the fife and drum/country opening section in the first movement and the air force training routine sergeant/squad chant in the last movement (albeit within a 12-tone note row!).
Mike Mower
