PROGRAM NOTES:

The architecture of Midsummer in the Cottonwoods is based upon sounds and images of the wind blowing through cottonwoods near my home on the Colorado Plains.  There are three “wind” episodes in the first half of the piece that feature different manners of building and releasing intensity.  These passages are broken up by sparsely textured interludes and points of complete pause.  The third episode leads into a primarily homophonic section of sustained intensity.  Merging into a penultimate calm, the flute, oboe and clarinet hover in their highest ranges followed by a return to the gentle stirring of the opening texture.