Just Under the Bridge and Back Again 

Premiere performance by the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Costa Rica at the beautiful Teatro Popular Melico Salazar.
Conducted by Anthony Joseph Lai.
Special thanks to Angel Velez and the Los Angeles Film Conducting Intensive.
About the piece:
Written for a concert titled "A Night in Hollywood" that featured concert music by film composers as well as well known film scores, Just Under The Bridge And Back Again was written to be a contemporary orchestral work that had the accessible appeal of film music. With a title inspired by a quick boat ride under the Mackinac Bridge in my home state of Michigan, the piece is conceptually programmatic, but ultimately a piece of absolute music that plays around with two short motives that occur in a variety of variations. The form of the piece, with its adventure film-like return of the opening theme, is a very loose nod to the triumphant recaps of so many great symphonies.
The intertwining of simple, often diatonic lines with rapid shifts of the tonal center give the piece a Copland-esque feel at times, while the playful tambourine is most certainly inspired by a certain Bringer of Jollity--a hat tip to the monumental orchestral piece that served as a blueprint for so many film score sounds of the 20th Century.
I encourage the listener to search for the two motives--stated right at the start--and then trace their occurrences throughout the piece, as the manipulation and recycling of those small ideas served as the architecture of the entire work.