Back in the 18th century, if you were Haydn, there was a friendly Austrian prince or London impresario to pay you to write symphonies and provide an orchestra to play them. If you were Mozart or Beethoven, and no prince or impresario was handy, you could always hire your own orchestra, put on a concert featuring your latest symphony, and make a profit—depending how ticket sales went, of course.

But by the 21st century, this whole writing-a-new-symphony-and-getting-it-performed business has become MUCH more complicated and expensive.

American composer Peter Boyer had years of experience writing orchestral music for film, TV, and specially-commissioned occasional scores on various historical themes, but had never been asked to write a NON-programmatic symphony. "Commissions of this nature are rare," says Boyer, "so I was pleased when the Pasadena Symphony Association offered me the opportunity."

Programmatic or not, even in an "abstract" symphony, as BBC Music magazine noted, Boyer can (quote) "set a scene or create a mood rapidly and unambiguously; he writes with great flair for big orchestras."

On today's date in 2013, Boyer himself conducted the Pasadena Symphony in the premiere performance of his Symphony No. 1, a work with no overt program but dedicated to the memory of Leonard Bernstein, and Bernstein's daughter Jaime commented, "I know how deeply Peter relates to the music of [my father], as well as to the humanitarian spirit that infuses so many Bernstein compositions."