From Peaks to Prairie is a programmatic work featuring a range of landscape depictions from my time growing up in Montana. It starts with the determined gallop of the Prior Mountain Mustangs, with building woodwinds and brass leading in the expansive melody of the mountain peaks. The brass explode with sound here to demonstrate the vastness of the landscape. The sound diminishes again only to contrast widely with an exciting “storm section”. Here I thought back to watching massive summer thunderstorms grace the plains, with strong wind, loud thunder and lightning strikes. When I was little I loved watching the contrast of dark purple clouds and a sun beams intersect, and this stormy section begins to lighten with texture as it shifts into a quiet rain storm with a flute melody and glockenspiel. The woodwinds and strings add in to the soundscape for the sun to peak out again, just in time for a shift in scenery. The “River Confluence” section describes the confluence of the Gallatin, the Jefferson, and the Madison Rivers. The headwaters of the Missouri river is beautiful and powerful, with something sweet about the way these bodies of water all eventually join as one. There is great tenderness in the clarinet duet, as the rivers act as the veins of our Earth, feeding the landscape to keep it alive. This section builds in texture to the grand climax of the piece, once again displaying the grandeur of Montana’s natural landscapes with soaring brass bringing back the mountain melody, and the strings picking up the clarinet’s river serenade. Instead of bringing the end of the piece to a quiet close, I decided to let it remain large, so each player could finish the piece together as a whole. This ending felt like an appropriate closing to this musical painting of the state of Montana.