Summer Sunrise on the Mississippi for clarinet and CD (2009).

I teach musical composition and music theory at Southeast Missouri State University. Every day, when walking home, I would see a glint of blue through the trees on the horizon. For many months, I thought I was seeing the sky. Then, one day, I saw a stern-wheel steamboat squarely in the middle of that patch of blue–what I had been seeing was the Mississippi River. Every day after that, I would watch the river and observe its moods. It's been my daily companion ever since. Recently, our music department at Southeast Missouri State moved from the main university campus to a new one on the banks of the Mississippi. Now I observe the river up close. I see different things every day. I decided to write a piece about the river, a piece that expresses its mood on a warm day, early in the morning, just as my own day would begin. I looked to Mark Twain for some lyrics and found a suitable passage in his Life on the Mississippi. I thought Twain's words would make a great basis for a song, and I think that someday they will; however, instead of a vocal work they inspired me to write this instrumental solo. When I recorded the river sounds for the CD accompaniment, I put the microphone right down on the Mississippi River (in downtown Cape Girardeau, Missouri). I also recorded some other nearby sounds: birds, cicadas, a passing train, etc.

Summer Sunrise on the Mississippi, Michael Dean, clarinet (excerpt).