"The string quartet Crosswinds filters the landscape and folk music of Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains through a compositional voice refreshingly detached from schools and trends,. Impressionistically personal and good humored, it shares, with Brouwer's other work from the mid-1990s an invigorating directness. Prelude and Vivace for clarinet and chamber group, and Diary of an Alien for solo flute and electronics are more lighthearted without being lightweight. Sonata for Horn and Piano, although more earnest, sustains the uncluttered immediacy of person-to-person address."