Blue Ridge Seasons paints a musical portrait of a region that is very special to me, the Blue Ridge Mountains of Tennessee, Virginia, Georgia and the Carolinas, where I was born and raised. Each season in the Blue Ridge has its own distinct beauty, from the lush greenness of summer that becomes a stunning canvas of color in fall, to the quiet still of winter that gives way to the buzz of life re-emerging in spring.

The piece draws extensively on musical elements of the region. Bluegrass-tinged Southern Solstice opens the work with the heat of mid-summer, as the instruments exchange energetic rhythmic motives in a suggestion of a mountain hoedown. With its singing Appalachian-esque melodies the lyrical second movement, Autumn Serenade, is at turns plaintive and joyous, much like the season it depicts. Shenandoah Snow pauses to reflect, its muted calm whispering the hushed, almost ethereal tones of winter in the forest. The cycle completes itself with the vitality of Blue Ridge Spring and its raw fiddling gestures, blooming ever more intensely to the blazing finish.

Blue Ridge Seasons is based on an earlier version of the work, a concerto for viola. The version for string quartet was commissioned by Chamber Music Hawaii for the Galliard String Quartet, and is dedicated to Don, Judy, Vicki and Wendi — my Blue Ridge family.