When John Mooney approached me about writing a piece for the East Central Missouri District 7 Honor Band, his request came with the rather unusual idea of writing a short work for soloist and band that could be structured in such a way that any instrument could serve as the soloist. Personally, I enjoy the challenge of trying something new with each piece that I compose and so I eagerly accepted this opportunity. Almost immediately, I had the additional idea of using a narrator and allowing the soloist to sort of “comment” upon the words that were spoken, an idea that would also permit for the use of a vocalist as soloist as well.

The choice of text for the piece came because I had recently finished my Symphony No. 8, which uses poems written in action during World War I by the British poet Wilfred Owen. In the course of reading Owen’s poetry, I had reread John McRae’s In Flanders Fields, an incredibly powerful and moving poem that was composed on May 3, 1915 from the battlefront in Ypres, Belgium. I continued to reflect on McRae’s poignant and evocative words as I began to consider my commission for the East Central Missouri District 7 Band when I realized that the premiere for the piece would be over Veterans Day weekend, an ideal opportunity to recognize and support the sacrifices made by members of our military.

The poem is structured in three stanzas, each of which assumes a somewhat different tone and perspective, which I tried to reflect in the structure of the piece. I used a consistent four measure harmonic progression throughout much of the work, initially as a more reflective (and at the end, hopeful) rising pattern of F major, G minor, A minor, and Bb major. In the darker middle portion of the work, I essentially inverted the progression, constructing a descending pattern of D minor, C major, Bb major, and A minor.

In Flanders Fields was premiered on November 11, 2017, with me conducting the East Central Missouri District 7 Honor Band.