I. The Sun, the Plains, and You (0:00)

II. Kiss and Kick (3:42)

III. Wind Dwellers (5:45)

IV. My Colt's Bigger than Yours (11:42)

V. As Long as there's a Sunset (15:27)

“Western Dealings” is a five-movement adventure to the Great American West. Being born and raised in Colorado, I have always had a love for our Western culture, history, homeland, and spirit. Each movement in rooted in some aspect of the West from its geography, to the spirit of the Cowboy, to Native American confluence.

The first movement, “The Sun, the Plains, and You”, is a conception of what it is like to be in the Great American Desert (the Great Plains). Inspiration comes from the Pawnee National Grasslands in Northeastern Colorado. The landscape is almost completely barren and fosters a feeling of magnificence, yet overwhelming emptiness; there is nothing, literally, except the sun, the plains, and you.

“Kiss and Kick” captures the spirit of the Cowboy. The Cowboy is, often times, the spitting image of the American West. The character of a Cowboy fosters freedom, determination, independence, good moral, and is never without a keen sense of “giddy-up”.

The American West has always been an epicenter of intersecting cultures, peoples, tribes, and nations. “Wind Dwellers” is an homage to the Native American flute, an integral instrument in many tribes’ cultures. It brings great meaning and sacredness and, having always been a fond listener myself of its ancient sound, I wanted to adapt its essence to the clarinet.

“My Colt’s Bigger than Yours” presents the classic Western “stand-off”. Although such stand-offs were actually rare, the West was, and still is, a battleground of nations and ideologies, and is never without challenging and bloody conflicts.

Finally, “As Long as there’s a Sunset…” comes from the first part of the phrase, “As long as there’s a sunset, there’s a West”, which is often said at the end of rodeos and cowboy events. This phrase can be interpreted as the spirit of the West lives on in those who carry the spirit of freedom, adventure, good and strong moral, and a deeper understanding and respect of the great Earth with which we live upon.