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Walk the Earth is about the unexpected discoveries one may find when taking the road less traveled. My music is often autobiographical, drawing from a deep interest in connections between the natural world and human experience, and this piece is an anthem to the detours that have steered my life in unforeseeable, yet exciting, directions. Walk the Earth opens with two contrasting ideas: a declamatory fanfare followed by a passage of kaleidoscopic orchestral texture. These two ideas pervade the work, sometimes converging and sometimes at odds. From the beginning, the fanfare motive is a spark that gradually spreads through each new section, and at the piece's final peak, bursts into an energetic frenzy. I set out to compose an overture that can act as an ecstatic concert opener, but rather than ending with a grandiose flourish, Walk the Earth closes with a pensive mantra composed of ticking pizzicato strings and swaying harmonies. The title is adapted from a line from Quentin Tarantino's 1994 masterpiece, Pulp Fiction. Jules Winfield, a gangster with deep-rooted spiritual hindrances, decides to give up a life of crime for a peripatetic, righteous life. When Vincent Vega, his skeptical partner, questions this decision, Jules explains that he will simply “meet people” and “get into adventures.” The performance time of this work is approximately 9 minutes and 30 seconds. / text

INTERRUPTED is a composition for a small orchestra that explores the process of creating a larger work from smaller, individual “moments.” The duration and structure of the individual movements are a response to a neurological dysfunction which limited the composer’s working memory and concentration. The composer’s former methodology of through-composing and evolving large structural elements over extended time spans was no longer possible. A new creative process was developed where the current moment at hand was the only moment that mattered. This new approach was both practical and philosophical, and allows the freedom of writing an idea that may have little to do with what precedes it, and may or may not influence what follows. The common thread linking the movements was a loose system of pitch structure that was developed from the intersection of overlapping enneatonic and octatonic scales. The resulting mini-compositions serve as individual “moments” which were then arranged and edited with some repeating variations, to create a cohesive whole. INTERRUPTED showed the composer that the perceived limitation of one’s creative process can be re-tuned to become a strength and an outlet for new directions in creative output.

INTERRUPTED is a composition for a small orchestra that explores the process of creating a larger work from smaller, individual “moments.” The duration and structure of the individual movements are a response to a neurological dysfunction which limited the composer’s working memory and concentration. The composer’s former methodology of through-composing and evolving large structural elements over extended time spans was no longer possible. A new creative process was developed where the current moment at hand was the only moment that mattered. This new approach was both practical and philosophical, and allows the freedom of writing an idea that may have little to do with what precedes it, and may or may not influence what follows. The common thread linking the movements was a loose system of pitch structure that was developed from the intersection of overlapping enneatonic and octatonic scales. The resulting mini-compositions serve as individual “moments” which were then arranged and edited with some repeating variations, to create a cohesive whole. INTERRUPTED showed the composer that the perceived limitation of one’s creative process can be re-tuned to become a strength and an outlet for new directions in creative output.

Overture to "Candide" / Leonard Bernstein -- Islands: Concerto for double bass and string orchestra / Peter Askim. / text

Magic flute overture / W. A. Mozart -- Piano concerto no.13 in C major K.415 / W. A. Mozart -- Symphony no.40 in G minor, K.550 / W. A. Mozart. / text

Lecture: "Appalachian spring: comparison of the thirteen instruments suite version of 1972 and the orchestral suite version of 1945." -- Appalachian spring / Aaron Copland. / text

Thesis (D.M.A.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1998. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaf 140). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Princeton University, 1970. / Holograph. For orchestra.

Thesis (M.M.)--Bowling Green State University, 2005. / Document formatted into pages; contains 1 score (32 p.) For symphony orchestra. Includes bibliographical references.