Stravinsky, Beethoven, John Adams, Scriabin, Radiohead, Josquin, Michael Gordon, David Lang, Wagner, Schoenberg, Nirvana, Steve Reich, Metallica, The Bad Plus, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Tortoise, Gerard Grisey, Louis Andriessen, Kaaija Saariaho, Ken Wilbur, Air, Frank Zappa
I am a composer living in Chicago. I write music for people to hear and to enjoy. It's not entertainment, it's just music... music for people's sake.
I value freedom. In my music, that means that I get to all the things I love to do and none of the self-sacrifice and prostitution.
"Do what you love and the rest will follow."
There's a part of me that believes in that ancient notion that art can actually make us better. And so music has power: maybe it can contribute to our self-awareness; or maybe it can dull our senses and lull us into a state of compliance. I may never achieve it, but I am aiming for the former.
Music should be part familiar and part new and foreign. When we expose ourselves to the New, we reawaken our brains.
Some days I feel like I'm still gestating, and others I feel like I'm being birthed. I feel like I'm on the cusp of something amazing; it looks like a vast darkness with no clear path ahead. There's no going back; I'll let you know when I get there--when I figure out where there is.
And so I compose and make music and find things and lose things.
And I live live in a state of becoming, just like you. I listen to music that I like and write what I listen to.
