Bass trombone is, without a doubt, one of my favorite brass instruments to write for. As with any other trombone in the family, it has that appealing grit and biting edge to any aggressive or powerful moment. Yet, at the same time, it is an instrument that is so very capable of producing the most beautiful, lyrical tones and passages. I knew from the start that I wanted to showcase both of these specific qualities of the instrument when Adam Graham commissioned me to write this piece. Mitten State Postcards is not a traditional sonata in the sense of its formal structure. Rather, it's a vignette of several short movements highlighting different aspects of my home state Michigan and how they connect with the four classic elements - water, fire, earth, and air. It has been several years since I wrote music inspired by this beautiful state - I am grateful to Adam for the opportunity to return to this inspiration from an altogether different approach, and perhaps from a changed perspective as well.

The first movement functions as a ballet of sorts, a lyrical ode to the Great Lakes and all of its natural splendor, in which the more beautiful qualities of the bass trombone have an opportunity to truly shine. The second movement charges off in the opposite direction, inspired by the automobile capital of the United States and home to some of the very best of rock-and-roll - Detroit. Here, the bass trombone's gritty, heavy-metal energy dominates the ligher melodic passages and hard-driven rhythms present in the piano, depicting fiery sparks flying off of the metal used to build these cars during the manufacturing process. The third movement depicts the glacial episode that, over geologic time, eventually formed landscapes in Michigan such as the Sleeping Bear Dunes. Similar to the first movement (whose material briefly returns near the end of this movement), broad and expansive passages rely on lyrical melodies and dramatic harmonies to guide its journey. The fourth movement, inspired by the establishment of the Manistee National Forest in 1938, serves as a coda to all of these different ideas, dancing between both lyrical passages and grittier harmonies in a stream-of-consciousness form.