Initially written throughout a majority of the second half of 2020, Two Pieces in Minimalism was Evan Erickson's standout work as a high school composer. It was created as an hommage to some of his favorite composers (like John Adams, Steve Reich, Igor Stravinsky, and Philip Glass), to blend their influences into Evan's first piece for orchestra. After leading to an official commission by the Dubuque Symphony Orchestra and laying the groundwork for Evan to get more of his music performed, he chose to revise the piece in June of 2022 to make the score look professional in the hopes of a possible future performance.

Evan's intentions were to take what he did not like about minimalistic music and put his own spin by using the foundations of the style (i.e. repetitive ostinati, use of short motifs, and layering), but always giving something new to the ear to catch on to. He tried to keep every phrase and section short without staying the same for too long so there is a constant freshness to the listener while building each movement through repeating motifs. Within this, the original composition hosted three movements of varying styles with a different movement order. The third movement was scrapped for this revision.

The main idea for the first movement was to specifically mimick John Adams. It started as Evan's way to use the classic bouncy eighth-notes Adams uses in "The Chairman Dances," but ended up reminding some of Philip Glass. Two Pieces in Minimalism did not have the trombones, bass trombone, or tuba until after "Amongst the Ocean on a Speedy Sailboat" had been written, and was lacking the counter-melody currently seen in this movement until that point. Its addition brings more of the colors to life, always allowing the listener's ear to focus on new additions/parts of the orchestra, and creates an overall more powerful sound. Just like it can happen when crossing the ocean, this piece encounters an intense storm. Growing constantly until it suddenly dissapears, the storm dissipates into a beautiful and open sky, which is played by the resolving chord of the horns.

Coming straight from the exciting motivation to compose music comparable to Adams' "The Chairman Dances," as well as mixing Reich's Music for 18 Musicians and Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, "Groove" has become one of Evan's most popular compositions. It was not until after finished writing this movement Evan had discovered "Lollapalooza" by John Adams, which seemed to share an almost identical sound and structure at points in the way it builds/how it is orchestrated. This movement follows two main "themes" with layers, variations, and hints of melodies which constantly stack and blend together. Initially titled "Groove in 5/8," it was decided to remove the odd time signature because its difficulty served no main purpose to the piece, being easily replaced with simple meters for ease of being played by an ensemble.