Primary areas of interest

• New music for silent film
• Opera and theatrical music
• Composer residencies exploring music within a humanistic, cultural context

Humanistic music: a cultural, cross-disciplinary context

Exploring the interaction of music with extra-musical elements such as visual art, theater, and film, is an undertaking which has become increasingly fascinating to me. Discovering external connections with musical works, including my own, helps (for me) to put music more clearly in context with the world around it, and to give it a broader perspective.

My compositions, while constructed with purely musical considerations, often begin from the inspiration of a particular image or concept. And although knowledge of or familiarity with an underlying concept or image may not be necessary to the appreciation of a piece of music, such knowledge does, I think, allow the listener or performer a greater share in the piece's total expression. As a composer, I believe very strongly in conveying to audiences something of the richness of these interconnections.