Boosey & Hawkes (Hendon Music)
My roots in the northeast run deep. My ancestors lived in the tenements of the Lower East Side in the 1800s. Later moving throughout the region, they never wandered too far: my great-great-great-grandfather—who died more than a century ago—is buried 30 miles to the west of where I currently live in New Jersey. It is therefore not enough to say that I am from the northeast, but rather that I am of it.
Yet after graduating high school, I began to gradually move west. I attended college in Pennsylvania and graduate school in Michigan. I attended music festivals in Colorado and California. I went in search of what the less-eastward parts of the country had to offer. And while I liked the places and the people I met there, I missed my place, and mypeople: the east coast.
East Coast Attitude is a loud love song to the clutter, cacophony, fast-pace and attitude of my east coast home. Lasting approximately seven minutes, it is dedicated to Michael Haithcock and the University of Michigan Symphony Band, who commissioned the work in celebration of the U-M School of Music’s 125 Anniversary, and gave its premiere on April 7th, 2006 at the Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor.
— David T. Little
Weehawken, NJ 9.21.17