COMPOSING
Melding influences from pop, folk, musical theater, and classical music with my roots in vocal music, I craft heartfelt musical narratives that utilize motifs, organic melodies, and warm harmonic textures to create intimate, authentic performance experiences. I’ve written music for the theatre and concert hall for ensembles from choir to string quartet to full orchestra, and I am grateful to have been able to work with many outstanding artists to bring my music to life. Check out my recent recordings here!
Thoughts Drawn from Falling Water
On June 7th, 2017, just a few days after graduating high school, I went on a hike with two of my best friends in McConnells Mill State Park, just 40 miles north of Pittsburgh. What happened that day changed the course of my life, beginning a journey of falling, landing, growing, and finding peace that has turned me into the person I am now. In the years that followed that hike, I compiled reflections, realizations, mumbled melodies, chords, and motifs that eventually came together to form the words and music that make up this piece. Thoughts Drawn from Falling Water is a song-cycle interwoven with stories, reflections, and lessons I learned on that journey that began back in June 2017. Nearly five years later, right before I graduated college, I premiered the piece as my senior recital in the Carnegie Mellon University School of Music, with the help of my friends, these wonderful musicians: Joshua Gregg Fried (piano), James O’Malley Gorbea (guitar), Andrew Gray (violin I), Elizabeth Hur (violin II), Aaron Morrison (viola), and Haley Rasmussen (cello). These four selections are portions of the first half of the piece, building ideas that eventually find their way to resolution.
Stepping with the Stars
I entered my college life at Carnegie Mellon looking for answers, searching for purpose and direction after having my life turned upside down by a major medical accident. In that searching, I took countless walks at night - journeying through deep breaths of contemplation, a mind full of scattered thoughts, bouts with frustrating uncertainty, and a whole lot of prayers - hoping to somehow land on an answer beneath the blanket of the night sky. This piece is a musicalization of those walks, a reflection of finding peace through all I’ve experienced, learning to trust even in uncertainty, growing to understand that one step at a time is enough.
This is the premiere performance the piece, played by the Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic and conducted by Guy Victor Bordo on April 12, 2022.
Power/Trip
In August 2021, I received an unexpected email from the brilliant Anne DeMelo, who told me about the upcoming world premiere of her play Power/Trip, a modern adaptation of Shakespeare’s Richard II tackling the concept of power, who controls it, who and what we believe in, and how power cycles throughout history impact us now. Anne wanted live music to be a central piece of the play, and I was given the incredible opportunity to, with Anne’s help and that of sound designer Erik Cereghino, craft the musical world for the piece. I composed a score built around developing themes of different characters and settings in the show, adding another layer of storytelling to the play. It was an honor to help bring this piece to life with the original Power/Trip band - Aaron Morrison on viola, Hikari Harrison on cello, and James O’Malley Gorbea on guitar. These recordings are portions of that original score, which we recorded with the great Riccardo Schulz.
Jonathan Champion as Richard with The Musicians | Photo by David S. Rubin, DSRphoto.com