Joyride was originally composed about ten years ago when I was a student at Dobson High School in Mesa, Arizona. Our symphonic band had been invited to play at Carnegie Hall in New York City and my band director, Jon Gomez, proposed the idea of writing a short celebratory work to commemorate the occasion. As I remember it, he said, “it would be cool to blend something joyful, something traditional—say, Beethoven’s Ode To Joy—with something more contemporary—like John Adams’ Short Ride in a Fast Machine.” His idea excited me so much that within ten days, I had completed the first draft of this classical mash-up—a three-minute concert opener that dressed Beethoven’s famous melody in a tie-dye blazer of rhythm and texture that nods humbly to Adams. Although the original piece was composed for a high school symphonic band, I’m especially excited to share this new version reimagined for full symphony orchestra and transcribed specifically for the Arizona Musicfest 2016 Young Composer’s Fanfare Competition.

In 2021, at the request of Maestro Moody and with generous guidance from orchestrator Larry Hochman, Joyride was again reimagined to better pair with the Beethoven Symphony No. 9 instrumentation. Today, this three-minute concert opener seems to be the perfect amuse-bouche to Beethoven’s four-course turkey dinner.