Composer
PDFs of my work
Threads was inspired by simple Renaissance melodic imitation techniques, specifically “stretto fuga.” I learned about the technique from the YouTube channel Early Music Sources and decided to play with it a little and see what I could make. The end result also draws on my influence from the dissonant counterpoint found in mid-20th Century American …
for Tammy Evans Yonce “All my life, my heart has sought a thing I cannot name. Remembered line from a long- forgotten poem.” — Hunter S. Thompson Download the score: A Thing I Cannot Name
One day I was walking back to my office when my colleague John Nichol (whose office was right next door to mine at the time) stopped me and said “Look at this. Isn’t this kind of nice?” and he pointed to the arrangement of thumbtacks on my bulletin board. There wasn’t a particular pattern or …
Writing for guitar can be a little intimidating to composers who don’t play it. While I did take some lessons in order to better understand classical guitar technique, I was definitely intimidated by Kenji Haba’s request for a new piece. I turned to miniatures inspired by the Five Hindrances found in Buddhism. These short movements …
I read a lot of comics and I always enjoy when I can talk about comic book stories and such. When Andy Jurik approached me about writing a new piece, he was specifically interested in the comic My Favorite Thing is Monsters by Emil Ferris. Going through the story I found there were so many …
I enjoy playing abstract strategy games but I’m not very good at them. One game that I would really like to play more and get better at is Go. Where the game of chess has opening moves and gambits and whatnots, in Go there is the concept of “joseki” or what kinds of stone placements …
This setting of Robert Herrick’s poem was original composed as the final section of an extended dance collaboration piece titled Folds based on vocal biology. The choir piece served as the foundation for the rest of Folds and I like it so much I decided to split it off into its own work. Upon Julia’s …
Folds was composed as a dance collaboration with Heather Trommer-Beardslee and Ann Dasen to represent aspects of vocal biology. The work’s four section trace the development of breath into utterance, utterance into words, and words into music. The piece was composed to celebrate World Voice Day in 2020 for Joshua May at Columbus State University. …
Two Shorter Songs was originally composed for countertenor Jerry Hui and saxophonist Aaron Durst. Whenever a composer is given the opportunity to write for a countertenor with perfect pitch, we are honor-bound to do so! I am thrilled that Jerry and Aaron were open to me writing for them. Texts by Dora Sigerson Shorter Beware …
Very often, it seems, my music takes on a life of its own. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do when I started this composition but it didn’t take long for the piece to decide what it wanted to be. The sources of the tape part are not important. The inspiration for the …