Kees Vlak’s “Westcoast Concerto” is for piano and wind band, a still rather rare genre in the concert band repertoire. Vlak wanted to materialize his idea of “music as communication”, with moments of tension and release, full of surprise twists for the listener. The interaction between soloist and band is also very important. The composer uses a standard form in three parts with coda: The most dominant features of the first movement are strong chords with many fourths and the main theme, running through the piece like a golden thread. It is traditional for this genre that the second movement is composed as a blues. The third movement is an “interrupted serenade” with Latin American influences, recurring bi-tonal insertions and a striking mixture of contradictory dynamics. The conclusive grandioso cantabile, presenting sonorous “blue notes”, leads “Westcoast Concerto” to a sweeping ending.