For Concert Band
Commissioned by the Parkway High School Band
Composed: 2025
World Premiere performed by the Parkway High School Band, May 4, 2025
(Premiere recording coming soon)
This commission was such a fun collaboration with the Parkway High School Band and its director, Maren. Prior to our collaboration, Maren asked the band: "If your high school band experience was a piece of music, what would you title it?" And the piece was very much inspired by the answers that the students gave.
I knew the emotions I wanted to capture with this piece from the earliest notes that I put down, but I really struggled to come up with the title. The answer came to me, of all places, during my bachelor party: I was talking to my best man (who is a horn player and a fellow lifelong band geek) about how the first bar of the piece is inspired by Lincoln Portrait, because that's the piece that comes to mind when I think about my own high school band experience. I told him about how Lincoln Portrait was quite a challenging piece for our band to play, and it made an impression on me as part of the musical growth I had in band that eventually prepared me for Northwestern. He helpfully chimed in with "you should use Portrait in the title," and there it was!
Portraits of Tomorrow is about the feelings that accompany you when you find yourself in that exciting time just before starting "the next big thing." Whether it's going off to college after high school, or accepting a brand new job offer, you start to dream of where your journey is about to take you, and the optimism starts to steadily yet passionately build. The type of anticipation that you can physically feel in your stomach - more than butterflies, but less than nervous aches. The fondness you feel when you look at all the wonderful memories that you've made in the place that you're about to leave behind. The wide-eyed awe at the realization that your future is going to give you more opportunities than you've ever had before. These are some of the emotions that I've tried to capture in the piece.