When I moved to Oklahoma from Missouri, I was amazed at the variety of colors in the sunsets over the Great Plains. These sunsets served as the basis of Under the Oklahoma Sky. My aim was to represent a day through several sections, dawn, sunrise, morning, clouds, rain, rainbows, evening, and sunset. In addition to original melodic material, the work also uses the Slane hymn tune, most familiar as the tune to "Be Thou My Vision" to represent feelings of awe when experiencing the sublimity of nature.