RUNNING ON ROOFTOPS is the first in a series of pieces called Imagined Adventures; short, programmatic works based on childhood fantasies. This fanfare is about the superhero fantasy of running, jumping, swinging, or flying across a city skyline.

It begins with rumbling, dreary, motoric “street-level” music, which lightens as our character spots a fire escape, and begins daydreaming about climbing to the roof to test out new imaginary super powers. As the piece progresses, there are occasional conflicts between the bright, sun-lit rooftop hero music, and the darker, shadowed, street-level music. Eventually, with new super powers well under foot, the final heroic version of the main theme emerges.

Not only is this piece about superhero fantasies, but for me, it is also about composer fantasies. Writing this piece allowed me to play in a film music-inspired sandbox that I might otherwise not get to do.

The orchestral version of this piece was commissioned by The Florida Orchestra and the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters in honor of TFO's 50th anniversary season. It was premiered by The Florida Orchestra and music director Michael Francis in November of 2017.

Performance note: the sixteenth-note rumblings in m.m. 1-16 and m.m. 66-98 are meant to create an intense, buzzing texture. This texture is more important than any individual notes. The conductor may determine it is not worth extensive rehearsal time to "clean" the lines of that texture, which is fine by me.