Without a doubt, Christopher Rouse (1949 - ) is one of the most important composers on the scene today. He received the Pulitzer Prize in 1993 for his Trombone Concerto, once taught at the University of Michigan, and now teaches at both the Eastman School and the Juilliard School, certainly two of the very finest music schools in the world. Rouse is no stranger to Jackson, and for a time was a member of the JSO's percussion section!

Many of Rouse's works focus on themes of death and suffering because, in his own words "It seems to me that the purpose of the arts is to provide a kind of spiritual nourishment and healing that isn't really available anyplace else." His music is unmistakably modern, but always expressive, "which must mean" Rouse says, "that I've always been a Romantic at heart."

In his Flute Concerto, written in 1993, Rouse created a memorial to a two-year-old English boy, James Bulger, who was kidnapped and brutally slain by two ten-year-old boys. "In a world of daily horrors," Rouse said, "it is sometimes only isolated, individual tragedies which serve to sensitize us top the potential harm that man can do to his fellow." The middle movement is an elegy to the young child, and forms a kind of centerpiece for the symphony, while the rest of the music focuses on a less tragic vein. Rouse consciously sought to capture influences of his British ancestry in the concerto, especially Celtic themes. In fact, Rouse says, the faster music of the March and Scherzo "keeps trying to become a jig."