When I was asked to write a piece for the Hofstra University Symphonic Band, I set out to compose a work with emotional impact, but without a specific "storyline." I had composed works in the past whose forms were dictated but the story they were telling, and this time I decided to attempt the creation of an emotional work that communicated its ideas through nothing more than the music itself. I also wanted to focus on the ability that a large wind group has to create very long, connected lines. The piece, then, is designed in its broadest sense to be one very long crescendo to a powerful, sustained climax. Although, I never intended for there to be a program involved with the piece, I discovered that inevitably there would be one. Several painful events in my own life, including the death of my grandmother, occurred as I was composing the piece, and the emotions relating to these events are inextricably bound to the piece I wrote.