Ngaio Marsh on writing - I believe her words apply to musical composition as well.

“It must have a beginning, a middle, and an end. The middle must be an extension and development of the beginning, and the end must be implicit in both. The writing is as good as the author can make it: nervous, taut, balanced and economic. Descriptive passages are vivid and explicit. The author is not self-indulgent. If he commands a good style, there is every reason for maintaining it. In an age of immensely long and undisciplined novels, one can do with some shapely ones, and in the midst of much pretentious obscurity, a touch of lucidity is not unwelcome.”

The Red Dress

Today we are posting the first of four new YouTube videos created to accompany my "Four Songs on Poems of Dorothy Parker" from The Navona CD "Time, Still." Videos created by Chad Michael.

Juliana Gondek, mezzo-soprano

Rakefet Hak, piano

Doug Masek, alto saxophone

Recording Session with The Altius Quartet

January 6, 2019 the Altius Quartet will be recording my piece "The Present Moment" for an upcoming release on the Navona label. Looking forward to working with this exemplary group of young musicians!

Flutist Lindsey Goodman presents a solo recital, "21st Century Visions for Flute", at Glenville State College in Glenville, West Virginia on 
Thursday, October 25th at 7:00 pm. 

Lindsey will perform my piece for flute solo entitled SOLILOQUY.

The Orange County School of the Arts Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Christopher Russell, will perform my piece EVENT HORIZON

Friday, September 28, at 7 p.m. at Symphony Hall, Orange County School of the Arts, 1010 N. Main Street, Santa Ana 92701.

On Sunday October 7 at 3 p.m. in Bridges Hall of Music, Pomona College, Ursula Maria Kleinecke, soprano, Gayle Blankenburg, piano, and Kenneth Foerch, alto saxophone, will perform my song cycle “This Is What I Know - Four Poems of Dorothy Parker” - a piece commissioned by the amazing Juliana Gondek. Other wonderful music is on the program. Please join us! Hope to see you there!

It turns out that I earned an Honorable Mention in the 2018 American Prize 

competition, instrumental chamber music category, for my cello sonata "Imagined/Remembered."

The recording submitted was from my 2015 album

Time, Still

with Armen Ksajikian, cello, and Robert Thies, piano