During the years when my day job was as a church music director, I churned out veritable stacks of scores, arrangements, and orchestrations, and while I'm very happy to let most of that work be lost to antiquity, I always was kind of fond of this set of 5 Lenten psalms.

Histories is an exploration of two fundamental narratives that make up our reality at vastly separated scales: that of subatomic particles in Fermion Histories, and that of life in Genomic Histories.  Each cycle tells a story: from spontaneous symmetry breaking and the moment of creation, to the quantum reality all around us, to the slow heat-death of the universe in a far distant future (Fermion Histories), and from the fundamental essences of life, to the arising of consciousness, to the inevitability and naturalness of death (Genomic Histories).  The two sets are intended to be performed together, in alternation; each consists of three movements, plus a prologue included with Fermion Histories.

Histories is an exploration of two fundamental narratives that make up our reality at vastly separated scales: that of subatomic particles in Fermion Histories, and that of life in Genomic Histories.  Each cycle tells a story: from spontaneous symmetry breaking and the moment of creation, to the quantum reality all around us, to the slow heat-death of the universe in a far distant future (Fermion Histories), and from the fundamental essences of life, to the arising of consciousness, to the inevitability and naturalness of death (Genomic Histories).  The two sets are intended to be performed together, in alternation; each consists of three movements, plus a prologue included with Fermion Histories.

H arose from a multimedia collaboration with artist Henry Schmidt and animator John Krisman. The music of H sketches out a story on time scales of billions of years, and of a single lifetime.  The nine movements create a cycle of transitions, from energy to matter, to the rise of life and breath, to motion, to consciousness, action, and repose, ultimately leading back to matter and energy.

Nanosecond, a collaboration with choreographer Anne Wilcox, was premiered on the Rochester, NY Fringe Festival in September 2019.

Commissioned by the Aldersgate United Methodist Church Chancel Choir.

Pseudovector was commissioned by American percussionist Michael Burritt and The United States Air Force Band for that ensemble’s 2018 season (premiere on February 22, 2018, Schlesinger Hall, Alexandria, VA).  The single movement requires significant virtuosity from the ensemble, and features the 5 players of the percussion section alongside the soloist, who performs on drum kit and marimba.  The work is part of an ongoing collaboration with physicist Regina Demina (FermiLab, CERN-LHC) exploring the fundamental narratives, at various scales, that make up our reality.  In physics, the term pseudovector refers to a quantity (often used to describe a particle or field, but applying to any object possessing, for example, angular momentum, torque, or a magnetic field) that acts like a vector when the system is rotated, but differently when the system is inverted or reflected, a construction that maps very naturally onto musical space and time.

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Created in partnership with National Geographic whale photographer Flip Nicklin, Unsoftly provides extended frames for improvisation supported by time-based string textures, which serve as a kind of medium for the extemporization of language by the remaining players.  The gradual development of granular sound elements during these sections, punctuated by more dramatic turns when new thematic material is injected, reflects what is known of the acoustic lives of whales without seeking to be directly imitative.  Rather, it contemplates what happens to our own perspective when we encounter exquisitely complex existences so different from our own.  Surrounding and framing the improvisatory episodes, the chorus gives voice to this meditation through a text on the evolution of consciousness by Eastman alum, poet, and musician Wendy Eisenberg. (Photo by Flip Nicklin)

Commission for the National Conductor's Orchestra, in process.