Transcendental Shifts was created in large part to reunite the dynamic team of musicians that produced the composer's tremendously successful double concerto, Dancing Through Time (2016), with Baroque flutist Stephen Schultz and violist David Harding, soloing, and the Carnegie Mellon Baroque Ensemble, led by Daniel Nesta Curtis.

The work, in one movement, opens enegertically and then flows seamlessly through numerous 'shifts' of tempos, moods, and meditations, arriving enegertically as in the beginning, but in a very different landscape. Throughout this spiritually inspired musical journey, Galbraith delights with her familiar yet astonishing array of orchestral colors, rhythms, and timbres to create a musical experience that is magnetically engaging from the very first measure, lasting through to the ending one hopes might never arrive.
— Martha Tablewight