I composed Blue Mosaics for Alfons Reverté Casas and the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra. One of the great pleasures of my first trip to Barcelona was to study the intricate mosaics running through the city like variations on a theme. Of course there are the prominent mosaics, such as the fantastical creations of Gaudi, but mosaics also occur when least expected, as in the tiled floor of an old hotel or a dusty alcove along the street. When I began working on Blue Mosaics I knew I wanted somehow to tie together the cities of Barcelona and my own home, Memphis. Mosaics seemed the obvious connection with Barcelona, and Memphis is a major center for the Blues. Thus was born Blue Mosaics, which employs snatches of melodic and harmonic elements from the Blues and molds them into fantastic new designs in which the tiny blue components may not seem obvious at first listening. The piece has three movements, slow, fast, and slow, which are performed without pause.