ARTIST’S STATEMENT

It is my aim to create music that is passionate, well-crafted and accessible. I want to integrate the different strands of American musical culture into a language that is fresh, but familiar. Above all, I try to make my work authentic.

CAREER

I became interested in music at an early age and started piano lessons when I was six. Early on, I knew that composing music was what I wanted to do with my life. Although I am largely self-taught as a composer, I have been fortunate to have had a lot of exposure to good music and musicians throughout my life.
By the time I was in High School, I had sung in the San Francisco Boy’s Chorus and I later studied piano under their director: Madi Bacon. I played French Horn in the Young People’s Symphony and eventually became their orchestra manager.

I attended Berkeley High School which had a stellar music department in the 60’s. When I was a Senior there, I wrote a piano concerto which was performed by the school orchestra with me conducting and a friend playing the piano part. In High School I also wrote my first choral piece (a cantata which was performed at a local church) and I hosted a TV special on young musicians of the Bay Area.

Between High School and College, I became Assistant Conductor of the West Contra Costa Symphony under Ron Daniels (who mentored me in conducting) and together he and I founded the Alvarado Youth Symphony. It was at this time that I became particularly interested in musical languages that had developed in America such as continental counterpoint, ragtime and gospel music. I became a great fan of the music of William Billings, Scott Joplin and Charles Ives.

After graduating from Berkeley High, I went to UC Santa Cruz (where Kent Nagano was a fellow-student) and I got to write music for lots of different purposes including dance and incidental music for plays. I was the Assistant Conductor of the University Symphony, the University Band and the Opera Workshop. I also got my first real church job as Music Director at the First Methodist Church of Santa Cruz.

I graduated from UC Santa Cruz with an A.B., majoring in music composition and conducting. However, by this time I had concluded that I was not suited to the academic world. I returned to the Bay Area and began giving concerts and holding a succession of church musician jobs.

Things got more complicated after I got married and had three children. The marriage ended in divorce and I struggled with balancing my life as a single Dad, trying to build a career as a computer programmer to pay the bills and still keeping up my musical activities. I continued to work as a church musician and eventually became Conductor and Music Director of Berkeley Harmonia Chorus and Orchestra.

As my children grew up, I had more time to devote to music and returned to concertizing and eventually began performing at ragtime festivals around the country where I have met and become friends with many wonderful performers and composers of ragtime.

Besides my ragtime compositions, I write a great deal for the church and have expanded into larger works: a choral mass, an Oratorio and several large church works combining music, dance and drama. I have the great good fortune to study organ under Sandra Soderlund - a tremendously accomplished performer and scholar.

For several years I have been associated with Goat Hall Productions an opera company in San Francisco which premiered my opera “The Soldiers Who Wanted to Kill Death” and a scene from my second opera “Joan of Arc: Fear of the Fire”. I am working on a new opera which I hope to perform with them soon.

Along the way, I served as Executive Director of Volti – a professional chorus that performs challenging contemporary works – for two seasons where I was lucky to work with Robert Geary - one of the leading choral conductors active today.

I am currently Music Director at the First Presbyterian Church of Napa.