In addition to paying homage to the American concert band music I played in high school, Hoboken Vignettes is a tribute to the mile-square northern New Jersey city situated on the Hudson River between the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels. Hoboken Terminal is a major transit hub, connecting three rail systems (commuter, light rail, and PATH), buses, and ferries. Rush Hour at Hoboken Terminal is inspired by the crush of purposeful bustle where a multitude of separate paths cross in patterns of both coincidence and avoidance.Castle Point, a bluff overlooking the Hudson and home to the campus of Stevens Institute, is the highest spot in Hoboken. Sunrise Over Castle Point pictures the sun emerging over the skyscrapers of Manhattan on a clear day, illuminating the horizon with a spectacle of both direct and reflected glow. Spring Sunday in Sinatra Park imagines a stroll along the esplanade and public spaces built along the Hudson waterfront and named for Hoboken's perhaps most famous son.One of Hoboken's charms is its unique combination of small town and city. Nothing captures this more than its public celebrations. Festive Day on Washington Street portrays the holiday atmosphere of a civic parade down Hoboken's main street. Hoboken Vignettes might well be subtitled "Adventures With Triads," since triads are the underlying sonorities in all four movements. However, the triads don't function as they do in tonal music.Composition of Hoboken Vignettes was assisted by an Artist Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.
