Out and Back Again was commissioned and premiered by the Rainier Chamber Winds with soloists Walter and Ella Marie Gray in 1993. It is a chamber work in three movements featuring violin and cello with twelve wind players. The piece is blatantly “Americana” in its first movement; lyrical and reflective in the second. The third movement begins with larger dramatic shapes and gradually finds its way back to thoughts from the first and second movements. This movement also contains a substantial cadenza for the strings which begins in a conversational tone and eventually leads to a dance.

While much of Benshoof’s other writing displays an interest in jazz, Out and Back Again, he writes, is “closer to a barn dance than to a jam session.”, with a variety of characters and social interactions. One reviewer wrote of the work, “Out and Back Again is…a tone paining with thoughts of Charles Ives in the number of ideas he weaves in, but with more feeling of Copland in its harmonies and a delightful flavor of the American West.” Benshoof notes that these similarities may stem from the years in which he worked with American folk music, mixed with his childhood years spent in the farm country of Nebraska and Iowa, and in central Alaska.

Instrumentation:

• Solo Violin
• Solo Cello
• Piccolo
• Flute
• Oboe
• English Horn
• Clarinet
• Bass Clarinet
• Bassoon
• Contrabassoon
• 2 Horns
• Trombone
• Bass Trombone