The inspiration for “Interior” came from several places unlikely to intersect--a few of my favorite trails where I have gone hiking, a performance of The Pines of Rome with the Illinois Wind Symphony in December of 2021, and the video game Yoshi's Crafted World published by Nintendo in 2019. I was struck by Respighi's clarity of orchestration and ability to connect four strikingly different pieces together into a single epic symphonic poem, so I decided to attempt to construct the shape of this piece in such a way. Yoshi's Crafted World is particularly interesting to me because every level uses an identical theme that is reharmonized and restylized to the dramatically different environments. It may be the most effciently scored video game of all time! I wondered if I could achieve something like that with concert music, and with these ideas in mind I set to work. Interior is dedicated with all of my love and admiration to my teacher Dr. Stephen Peterson.