In the Spring of 2017, my wind ensemble director, Dr. Stephen Gage, had asked me to write a work for the wind ensemble as part of the first concert block.  I was honored and humbled, but I also realized shortly after the offer that I had nothing even remotely close to anything involving “wind band repertoire,” with the exception of a pencil and a bunch of blank sheet paper.

So, rather me attempt to come up with something from scratch, I took up the idea of taking an original work of mine and arranging it for wind band.  While having to deal with the daunting task that is re-orchestration, at least I would have some kind of platform to work with.  

In result, I decided to take my “Kyrie Eleison” choral octet and arrange it for the wind ensemble.  In addition to having the wind ensemble play the instrument version, we also sang the SATB version as a group to capture some of those choral qualities that are more difficult to capture in the instrument version.