I made a Thing

This summer, I had the privilege of working with one of my childhood band directors, Bradley Hawkins, composing the music for a short film that he wrote and directed to feature his daughter, Sarah Hawkins. The film is called Roller Coaster, and it contains hardly any dialog at all, which means the musical score had to maintain its own role as a sort of character in the film.

Having not worked on a film project in a while, it was fun (and challenging) to dive back into this process. The film's Hollywood premiere is occurring next week on November 11th, followed by a Bay Area screening on the 22nd, and hopefully a bunch of festivals after that! 

The original score is now available here, along with more info about the film.

Peru Amazon Jungle Sounds

While spending time in the Peruvian jungle, I captured a variety of impromptu sounds of the area and combined them into this one recording. It takes me right back! This was recorded low-tech on an iPhone in the Amazon rainforest near Iquitos during the summer of 2015.

Fight or Flight - New piece for concert band

Last summer, I completed my first fully fledged concert band piece called Fight or Flight.

Since I’ve never actually delved into a full-on wind ensemble piece, I wanted to wait until it had been successfully performed before saying much about it. It was initially commissioned by Hunter McRae and Mary Wilson from the North Gwinnett Middle School Symphonic band to be premiered at the GMEA (Georgia Music Educators Association) convention in Savannah, GA in January of 2013.

Since then, a few other ensembles have taken a crack at the piece, and I now have a couple live recordings posted, as well as making the score available for purchase right here on my little old website. 

Marching Roundtable Podcast

I appeared as a guest on the Marching Roundtable Podcast hosted by Tim Hinton and Joe Allison. We talk about composer insecurity, writing in a team environment, film music, chemistry, obsessive behavior, life balance, objectifying the subjective, and bubbles.

Listen on the Marching Roundtable website.

Greta on the Greenway

I recently completed the music for another project produced by Animated Traffic Law. Commissioned by the Portland Bureau of Transportation, this traffic safety video was designed to educate viewers about greenway features, safe cycling routes, and “sharrows.”

The soundtrack is intended to create a dramatic build to accompany the family's bicycle journey. The intro and outro utilize a typewriter as an symbol of the government agency presentation, while the samba infused music it accompanies creates a fun and festive atmosphere.

For more info on my commerical work, go here.

New Music for 2012

I’ve recently finished my first fully fledged wind ensemble piece, titled Fight or Flight. It was commissioned by the North Gwinnett Middle School Symphonic Band from Sugar Hill, Georgia. It will be performed in January 2013 at the Georgia Music Educators Association (GMEA) Conference in Savannah.

Also, I’ve been asked to reorchestrate Cache 22 - a military drum piece I originally wrote for the Hellcats of the West Point Military Academy. This rearrangement has been adapted for a more conventional drumline instrumentation and will be performed by the University of Tennessee in Knoxville under the direction of Andy Bliss.

"Meanwhile in a Parallel Universe" completed

At long last, I’ve finished my latest piece titled “Meanwhile in a Parallel Universe.” It’s written to feature a solo marimba accompanied by percussion ensemble and is scheduled to premiere in Singapore in March 2012. 

The piece was a joint commission from the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory in Singapore (Jonathan Fox, director), and Bloomsburg University in Bloomsburg, PA (Dr. Gifford Howarth, director). Giff first approached me about this project a year ago, and it came with the blessing (and curse) of not really being due until Fall of this year. Since most of my time these days has been dedicated to keeping the wheels turning with Tapspace, my challenge lied in dedicating writing time in smaller increments over a longer span of time. 

I don’t usually tend to work this way. Usually, I dive into a project and it consumes most of my energy until the heavy lifting is done. In many ways, this piece still did consume me. However, it was spread out over a much longer span of time than I’m used to. Before it started taking shape or making much sense, I spent the majority of my time sketching ideas without worrying how they related to each other. Interestingly, this helped generate a wider range of ideas, which ultimately led to my decision to make it a more episodic piece in three parts.

My serious marimba-playing days are long behind me (not that they were ever there), yet the piece really needed to drive on Giff’s command of whiz-bang 4-mallet dexterity. Hopefully it will accomplish this without shedding too much light on the fear it brought me. Also, it was important to me that the ensemble wasn’t just window dressing for the soloist, but that they also didn’t compete. As it turns out, they both rely pretty heavily on each other. Technicalities aside, my hope is that it paints a fantasy-like adventure into which listeners can be easily drawn, while still being left guessing which way the road is going to turn.

Take a listen and read more about it here.