Finney was particularly generous to Reynolds, programming three of his pieces on the Midwest Composers Symposium, which was "unheard of" for student works. At these Midwest Composers Symposia, Reynolds also first encountered Harvey Sollberger, who would become a lifelong colleague and friend. From Finney, Reynolds learned of "the primacy of 'gesture,' which took to be a composite of rhythm, contour, and physical energy: the empathic resonances that musical ideas could arouse – at root, perhaps, an American tendency to value sensation over analysis."