The Boulder Philharmonic commissioned this piece about Rocky Mountain National Park with the support of the National Endowment for the Arts. Completed in January, 2017, it was premiered in March both in Colorado, and also at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C. as part of the SHIFT Festival of American Orchestras. In seeking inspiration (and a title) for this piece, I found I could do no better than these beautiful words of the park’s principal advocate and founder, Enos Mills. "The trail is the short Northwest passage to nature’s wonderland. With all its curves and windings it is essentially poetic; it knows the beauty of flowing lines; it is ever in the midst of those things that charm and cheer. It seeks out all the beauty spots and, like a great character, finds only that which is the best. We think of it accompanying the clear and fern-fringed brooks, and in the imagination follow it through mountain passes, curving along narrow vistas across which fall the shadows of the pines. We know it will frequently feel the rapture of silent scenes and often go close to the wild cataracts that leap in glory; at all times it is enlivened with the melody of the wild, ever charmed with echoes far and dim, ever bathed in the aroma of the wilderness, and it is in the heart of all the songs that nature sings." From “The Rocky Mountain National Park” (1924) by Enos Mills – known as the "Father of Rocky Mountain National Park."
