"Brouwer, head of the composition department at the Cleveland Institute of Music, wrote "Mandala" last summer at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire, where she studied her Dutch musical heritage and experienced the creation of a mandala sand- painted by Tibetan monks.  The solemn piece opens with a Dutch psalm tune intoned by a trombonist seated to the audience's right.  The 12-member ensemble onstage picks up fragments of the tune, and two French horns in the auditorium add to the sense of music spiraling through space like intricate patterns in the mandala.

     Chiming percussion and brass pedal points suggest ceremonial bells and chanting monks, while whispered words and clicking valves hint at subliminal messages.  The two-movement piece builds up with rapid squiggles, rising figures and signal calls... The performance left the enthralled listeners in a moment of stunned silence before the applause erupted... "