An Ear for the Music of the Adirondacks

Mike Holober, artistic director of the Westchester Jazz Orchestra, has climbed 45 of the 46 so-called High Peaks in the Adirondacks. So it was only natural that when he wrote the orchestras first original work, he found inspiration in the northern high country, particularly Lake Tear of the Clouds, the Hudson Rivers source, and the nearby Opalescent River two shimmering spots with which he is well acquainted.

I feel connected to these places, he said over lunch this month at a Manhattan coffee shop, the pages of his handwritten score for Flow: In Celebration of the Hudson River arrayed on the table before him.

Part of an Americana-themed show that will also feature new arrangements by Jim McNeely, Ellen Rowe and Pete McGuinness, Flow is a three-movement suite that will have its premiere on April 10 in the final concert of what has been a season of full and enthusiastic houses. The first two movements were named for their Adirondack sources: Tear of the Clouds and Opalescence.

The tenor saxophonist Jason Rigby a very modern player who nonetheless has a clear link to tradition, Mr. Holober said will handle much of the improvisation in Tear of the Clouds, an expansive exercise in shifting keys and rhythms that will put a premium on his ability to navigate a swirl of moods and colors.