Idumea for flugelhorn and viola was commissioned by violist Jennifer Krueger in honor of her father William (an accomplished flugelhorn player) and presented to him as a Christmas gift. The hymn And Am I Born to Die? authored by Charles Wesley is found in John Wesley's A Collection of Hymns, for the Use of the People Called Methodists under the section Describing Death set to the hymn tune Sarah by one W. Arnold. The focus of this rich eschatological hymn shifts from the first to last stanza from the fear of the grave though the anticipated resurrection, judgement, and glory, to ultimately the love of God.

The musical source material for this piece is a very different setting of this hymn, the American folk hymn Idumea. George Pullen Jackson writes in his Spiritual Folk-Songs of Early America: “The tune is claimed by Ananias Davisson in his Kentucky Harmony (1815) whence it was borrowed by practically all the subsequent book compilers in the South. The tune was used for the secular ballad ‘Lord Lovel.’” The tune has many characteristics of the folk songs of the South, including the haunting pentatonic modality, the regular triple meter of 2 + 1, and the unique form A B B' A, all of which are in some way incorporated into the piece. At the climax the tune itself is quoted with a harmonization adopted from William Walker's famous Southern Harmony.

 And am I born to die?
 To lay this body down?
And must my trembling spirit fly
 Into a world unknown –
 A land of deepest shade,
 Unpierced by human thought,
The dreary regions of the dead,
 Where all things are forgot?

 Soon as from earth I go,
 What will become of me?
Eternal happiness or woe
 Must then my portion be;
 Waked by the trumpet's sound,
 I from my grave shall rise,
And see the Judge with glory crowned,
 And see the flaming skies.

 How shall I leave my tomb?
 With triumph or regret?
A fearful or a joyful doom,
 A curse or blessing meet?
 Will angel-bands convey
 Their brother to the bar?
Or devils drag my soul away,
 To meet its sentence there?

 Who can resolve the doubt
 That tears my anxious breast?
Shall I be with the damned cast out,
 Or numbered with the blest?
 I must from God be driven,
 Or with my Saviour dwell;
Must come at his command to heaven,
 Or else – depart to hell.

 O thou that wouldst not have
 One wretched sinner die,
Who died'st thyself; my soul to save
 From endless misery!
 Show me the way to shun
 Thy dreadful wrath severe,
That when thou comest on thy throne
 I may with joy appear.

 Thou art thyself the Way;
 Thyself in me reveal;
So shall I spend my life's short day
 Obedient to thy will;
 So shall I love my God,
 Because he first loved me,
And praise thee in thy bright abode,
 To all eternity.