This piece for Wind Band was also written in the time of one month for a CUI Wind Orchestra composition competition that was unfortunately not finished after being interrupted by Covid 19. Expedition Elysium was going to be my entry and was composed for the instrumentation of the 2020 Concordia Wind Orchestra.

Expedition Elysium was my first real go at composing on a large scale in several aspects. I had never written for an orchestra before, but I also had not composed an original piece of this scale before. Needless to say, this was a big undertaking but I am very happy with how it turned out! 

Prior to composition, I listened to quite a bit of the wind band repertoire for inspiration. One idea I heard quite a bit that I liked was the three eight note, eight rest pattern heard throughout the first half of Expedition Elysium. I used this feel as a starting point and developed it from there. My instructor of the time, Dr. Tom Mueller, was incredibly helpful and insightful as I wrote this and I am very thankful for his contribution to it.

You may recognize the second theme, with the arpeggiated quarter notes, and find it to sound very familiar. I came up with this theme and was very happy with it for a long time - only to later realize that it is one of the main motives in John William's Superman. The CUI Orchestra had recently played the score from that movie and it was apparently subconsciously in my head! Only about a bar and half are the same before Expedition Elysium's theme diverges from the original, but I thought it was an amusing fact that some listeners might notice and wonder about.