Born in Massachusetts in 1943, a pupil of Joseph Wood and H. Owen Reed, David Maslanka has become especially well known for his works for winds in many combinations — solo sonatas, chamber works and substantial works for wind ensemble — including five Symphonies. Of these two recent works, he writes “The title Desert Roads suggests an interior journey, a time of inner searching, of not knowing, of creative incubation. I have chosen to call these four movements “songs” for clarinet and wind ensemble. This connects them directly to the romantic idea of ‘songs without words’…because of my longtime and persistent use of chorale melodies, it has been suggested that I am somehow proselytizing for the Christian faith. This is not the case. My attraction to these melodies is that they are the product of countless generations of human seeking, and have about them an aura of depth and power. The word ‘book’ gives the feeling of a larger collection of material, something extensive and varied, and something that may have a story to tell.”