The exciting performances contained in this box set, wonderfully performed by renowned conductors, orchestras, and soloists, represent concertos and works for orchestra I have composed for the concert stage from 1988 to 2005. The music you will experience finds its inspiration in the people (Georgia O’Keefe, Leopold Stokowski, Abraham Lincoln), places (Route 66, Philadelphia, Sunset Strip), and popular icons (Superman, trains, U.F.O.s) that have forged the United States. The people, places, and icons provide the listener with keys to open a door into my creative world and create an emotional framework for me to musically explore the poetry, energies, ambiguities, and paradoxes of American culture. – Michael Daugherty