la flor más linda exists in a version for orchestra as well as a version for saxophone ensemble, in addition to its original version for wind ensemble. For rental enquiries and/or perusal score requests for any version of the work, click the "rental enquiry" field.

PROGRAM NOTE

In September 2018, as protesters from Nicaragua’s Carazo region prepared to march against the increasingly dictatorial Ortega government, blockades and armed forces awaited protesters. A world away, I responded by recording and posting a verse of Carlos Mejía Godoy’s Nicaragua, Nicaragüita, a song that has become as clear a symbol of the resistance as the blue and white Nicaraguan flag. It was a cry into the abyss, but, to my surprise, it actually landed with dear ones and their friends in Nicaragua who wrote that they felt our family standing with them. From this urgent sense of reaching across distance through music grew la flor más linda, written for Glen Adsit, Edward Cumming, and the Foot in the Door Ensemble. With arms outstretched through sound, sonic images I associate with Nicaragua are slammed together: the Basílica bells that toll freely during the Festival of San Sebastián; the pito and chischiles of the dance of the Toro Huaco, for which stand in flute and maracas; the firecrackers that announce celebration; scalar gestures that conjure the strong wind that blows through my mother’s home town; fragments from de la Cruz Mena’s Los Amores de Abraham, a tune my grandfather and his brothers played in their ensemble Marimba Diriangén; and a single gesture from Godoy’s Nicaragua, Nicaragüita. Despite an impulse to center on vibrant imagery, celebratory sound mutates into the sinister, and song becomes lament. Estamos con la gente de Nicaragua, siempre. Viva Nicaragua libre. —GL 

The orchestral version of la flor más linda was commissioned by Wintergreen Music, Erin Freeman, Artistic Director, for premiere by Wintergreen Festival Orchestra, Miguel Harth Bedoya, conductor, July 27 & 28, 2024.

The original wind ensemble version of la flor más linda was commissioned by Glen Adsit for Edward Cumming and the Foot in the Door Ensemble for premiere at the College Band Directors National Convention, February 22, 2019.

A version of la flor más linda for saxophone ensemble was created for Carrie Koffman and the Hartt Saxophone Ensemble for premiere at the North American Saxophone Alliance Region 8 Conference, March 29, 2025.