Symphonic Excursions is a tale that grew in the telling. Intended as a 10 minute showpiece, it kept demanding more time and more scope as I was writing it. The first movement is what remains of the original concept: a four-minute gusher of fanfares and riffs that, especially in the low woodwinds, evoke similar passages in John Adams's Chamber Symphony. The opening fanfare, announced by strutting french horns, is in fact the musical bone that the entire piece chews over. Everything in second movement, from the opening timpani solo, to the soaring saxophone lines, to a scherzando whirlwind that breaks out midway through, is motifically tied to the opening fanfare. The second movement eventually builds to Mahlerian grandeur, with a climax fairly stolen out of his Ninth Symphony, and also like that symphony the movement slowly dies away. I call the final movement a snake-dance. Two pieces in the genre that I particularly like are Sensemaya by the Mexican, Silvestre Revueltas, and Batuque by the Brazilian, Oscar Fernández. Exoticism mixes with menace to fuse music that is brazier-hot. In my music the themes are permutations of the original fanfare, and eventually the point is driven home as the horns return to it near the end. One might try to name the destinations of these symphonic excursions. Perhaps the first is to the mountains, the second to the sea, and almost certainly the third is to the jungle. However, my preference is to leave such extra-musical speculations to the imagination of the listener. Symphonic Excursions was commissioned by H. Robert Reynolds and the University of Michigan Symphonic Band.