Awards: Finalist, BMI Student Composition Competition

 

Reading: American Composers Orchestra Jazz Composers Institute Reading Session, June 16th, 2016

 

Duration:  ca. 9 min

​

Instrumentation: 

2233/4231/harp/keys/timp/3 perc/strings

 

Program Note:

 

Beltway 8 is the superhighway that encircles the city Houston—it is the route where people can either avoid Houston or enter through it via a maze of connected highways. This piece captures the imagery of the highway on a busy day, full of reckless drivers—rollicking drumset figures and wind lines—and the occasional traffic jam— the slower section of the middle of the piece. This piece was modified from a work composed for the American Composers Orchestra Jazz Composers Institute and Readings, an initiative to create jazz-influenced works for orchestra. After an intensive workshop of the piece at the institute and readings, I decided to revise the work extensively. The work invokes a feeling of chaos and activity—recalling images of the “Spaghetti Bowl” of Houston highways.