I wrote Passages with several goals in mind. First, I wanted to write a concertino for solo trumpet that would display many different musical and emotional aspects of the instrument in a fairly accessible and listener-friendly style. The piece would be a series of "passages" linked together by a single motivic idea, which would undergo many transformations within the single-movement work.

I also was fascinated with the idea of pitting the solo trumpet against an unusual orchestration of four ...