This composition was commissioned by orchestra Ad Hoc, for their summer tour through France in 2019. Two French sources of inspiration play a role in this composition. First, Henri Duparc’s beautiful song L’invitation au voyage, from which the title of this work is derived. The building blocks of the melody of this song are used to form new melodies. In the lyrics of this song, poet Charles Baudelaire describes an ideal country where he would like to settle, together with his beloved Marie Daubrun (of which some people think he meant the Netherlands..). Second, Oliver Messiaen’s composition Oiseaux Exotiques. Messiaen’s compositions have been instrumented in a rich and effective way. This composition contains an ‘instrumentation quote” from Oiseaux Exotiques.