Boats Against The Current

This grade five composition takes its title from the last line of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." There is a great deal of meaning connected with this phrase and how it relates to my composition, but the part I want to highlight is as follows. This is the final version of Boats Against the Current, which began life as another piece that I wrote in 1977. It took me a long time to figure out where this music should go and what it should be. In its final form, it is meant to honor every performer and every conductor who played my band music at Missouri State University from 1986 to 2024. My thanks go out to all of them, because without performers a composer's music can't really exist. Many fine conductors interpreted my band music during their 38 years, and I am grateful to all of them. I would also like to thank Brad Snow for his excellent interpretations of many of my pieces for bandinspiring me to finally bring a long-evolving composition such as Boats Against the Current to a satisfactory conclusion. He directs the Missouri State University Wind Ensemble on the recording included here.