photo credit melissa mcdonough

To me, writing music often comes from a need to process what I experience through some creative medium. I have an irrepressible reflex to take what I observe in the world and spit it back out in another form. I don’t know why this is; it has been with me as long as I can remember.

I grew up composing, and learned many of the integral rules of theory and counterpoint by experimentation—what sounded “right” and what didn't. In college, I learned these things formally. But I've always felt it a necessity to navigate by what resonates with me personally.

My pieces are most often attempts to interpret through my own creative faculties things that inspire me as I come across them in my life. Often it is a writer’s text that particularly speaks to me. Sometimes it is simply an image. Always, it is a story.

Works

Large ensemble

Sandburg Poems (2014)
WINNER of a 2015 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award
folksinger, chamber orch. (1.1.2.0/1.2.1.1/3 perc, hp, pno, cel/4.3.3.2.1)
Text by Carl Sandburg
14’

From “Spoon River Anthology” (2014)
mezzo-soprano, orchestra (3.2.2.2/3.4.3.1/3 perc/str)
Text by Edgar Lee Masters
3’ 20”

 

Choral

Bee! I'm expecting you! (2016)
Two-part treble
Text by Emily Dickinson
1'35"

In pace (2014)
SATB
Text: Psalms 4:9 & 132:4
3’

Ophelia Songs (2014)
SATB, piano
Text by William Shakespeare
6’ 15”

Our soul is like a sparrow (2014)
SSAA
Text: Psalms 124:7
3’ 15”

Bogoróditse Dévo, ráduysia (2013)
SSAATTBB, violin
Text: Russian ‘Ave Maria’
3’ 45”

 

Vocal

From “Spoon River Anthology” (2015)
baritone, soprano, piano
Text by Edgar Lee Masters
5’

Macbeth: Act II, sc. ii (2012)
soprano, tenor or baritone, piano
Text by William Shakespeare
9’ 38”

Elegies (2011)
medium voice, piano
Text by Sara Teasdale & Emily Dickinson
3’ 20”

In my Craft or Sullen Art (2011)
baritone, piano
Text by Dylan Thomas
2’ 30”

 

Chamber

Pictures, for Pierrot ensemble (2012)
fl, cl, vln, vla, 2 perc
6’

3 Miniatures for Piano (2010)
solo piano
4’ 10”

 

Other

Mysteries of the French Quarter (2014)
2-channel fixed media & dance

Incidental music for Equus (2013)
12 vocalists