In the fall of 2009, after having heard some of my music at Interlochen, St. Louis Symphony’s bass trombonist, Gerry Pagano, contacted me with the idea of writing a new sonata for him. It wasn’t until several months had passed that the piece got written (Gerry is a patient man!), but a phone conversation with him in early June, 2010, sparked an immediate inspiration for the piece, and two weeks later, the piece was done. Gerry had mentioned offhandedly that it would be nice to have a piece that ...