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 started piano lessons at age 5 and I was already writing songs and piano pieces for my own enjoyment.  By the time I was in my teens, I got a good grounding in musical theory from my piano teachers and as a member of the San Francisco Boy’s Chorus.  I attended Berkeley High School in the 60’s. While a student there, I started writing more ambitious works including a Piano Concerto - and became Assistant Conductor of the West Contra Costa Symphony under Ron Daniels.

After graduating from Berkeley High, I went to UC Santa Cruz where I wrote for dance recitals, to provide incidental music for plays and continued to develop as a conductor. 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. I graduated in1976. I returned to the Bay Area and began giving concerts and held a succession of church musician jobs for which I wrote hymns, anthems, cantatas and oratorios.

As the years passed, I started a family and balanced my life as a father and an artist while holding down a 'day job' as a computer programmer.   I continued to work at churches and with community based musical groups, eventually becoming Conductor and Music Director of Berkeley Harmonia Chorus and Orchestra.  Along the line, I discovered ragtime and began writing my own rags and performing at ragtime festivals around the country.

In the 1990's, I moved to San Francisco and was associated with Goat Hall Productions - an opera company - which premiered my opera “The Soldiers Who Wanted to Kill Death".  My anti-war mass "Missa L'Homme Arme" and my oratorio "Harden Not Your Hearts" were written during this period.

Currently

I have been active since the 2000’s as a composer, conductor, arranger and performer in the Greater Bay Area..   In Sonoma, I was Music Director of the Hometown band for 13 years and active in local theater. I served as Director of Music Ministries for the First Presbyterian Church of Napa for twelve years. In 2025, I moved to Oakland, and got hired by St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Benicia as their Traditional Music Director.