Joyride The composer’s high school band director suggested he write something to open their 2005 concert in Carnegie Hall — maybe something traditional that was bursting with joy like Beethoven’s Ode to Joy and blend it with something more modern, like John Adams. The result, joyRiDE, borrows Beethoven’s infamous melody and dresses it in a tie-dye blazer of rhythm and texture that nod humbly to John Adams’s Short Ride in a Fast Machine .

The composer continues, “as a [high schooler] at the time, it included some beautiful mistakes … 12th Grade Me really wanted to hold true to the spirit of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 by keeping my mash-up in [his] original key. However, looking back, I realize that while [D Major] is a string player’s best friend, it is not so copacetic with band players… E-flat Major is just up the block, so for this revision I [raised] a portion of the piece by a half-step…”

Michael Markowski (b. 1986) says he is fully qualified to watch movies and cartoons because in 2010 he graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in ‘Film Practices’ from Arizona State University.