Brinson’s race

for trumpet in D and string quartet (2001), 25’

Brinson’s Race is for Robert Lane Overstreet (1930-2005), who was known to his many students and friends as “Doc.”  From the time of his retirement until the end of his life, he lived in a house that he built on Brinson’s Race, the farmland of his ancestors in Emanuel County, one of the only counties in the state of Georgia that voted against secession in the 1860s.  Brinson’s Race, which is about him and about that land. explores the possibilities of being in all keys, no key, and one key, as well as all meters, no meter, and one meter. I hope that Brinson’s Race conveys some of the magic of this extraordinary person and the land in which he spent his final years.