Symphony No. 1 was commissioned by the University of Miami School of Music Abraham Frost Series. It was begun in the fall of 2000 in Pasadena, California, and completed the following summer at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire. The work received its premiere performance at the closing concert of Festival Miami on October 25, 2001, by the University of Miami Symphony Orchestra, Thomas Sleeper, conductor.

The work comprises four movements. The first movement is an expression o...