Desire Lines

Wind Ensemble
​8'

Perusal Score [pdf]

Premiere Performance
University of Tennessee, Knoxville Wind Ensemble
John Zastoupil, conductor
Tennessee Music Education Association Conference
Gaylord Opryland Resort, Nashville, TN
​April 10, 2024

Program Notes
Desire Lines are the informal footpaths that hikers make as a shortcut on a trail to avoid a longer route. They reflect a collective motivation to reach the destination more quickly, and in the context of a mountain trail, they reflect a yearning desire to make it to the peak. While writing this piece I was thinking about desire lines, desire itself, hiking in the Smoky Mountains, Rachel Carson’s love letters, Emily Dickinson’s Master Poems, emotional longing, Impressionism, synchronicity, free will, love, and zigzagging lyricism.

The piece has three peaks, each a bit bigger than the last. In my mind, I relate these climaxes metaphorically to three stages on a mountain hike. The first peak reflects the feeling of excited anticipation when you can see the summit from the base of the hike. The second peak reflects that feeling on a hike when you have been going for a while and reach what seems like it could be a grand overlook until you realize you are only about half-way there and have a lot of mountain left to climb. After a great deal of exertion, you finally reach the third peak, the most beautiful part of the entire hike and bask in the realization that it was all worth the effort. At the end, however, you discover that the most beautiful part of the peak is not the view itself but rather the unhurried feeling you get when you close your eyes and listen to the birds and the wind.

Desire Lines was commissioned by a consortium of over 20 wind ensembles including Bearden High School, Cabrillo College, Collierville High School, Dobyns-Bennett High School, Farragut High School, Florida State University, Guyer High School, Hardin Valley Academy, Indiana University, Irvine Valley College, Louisiana State University, Nolensville High School, O’Fallon Township High School, Penn State University, Science Hill High School, Stewarts Creek High School, Westlake High School, University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, University of Illinois, University of Missouri, Kansas City, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and Yale University.