What I am most drawn to as a composer is the physical phenomena of a person’s engagement with their instrument (or voice). I imagine and experience sound in a tactile way, either through my imagination (or my own experience) of the hands on the instrument or through personal sensations of physical phenomena. As a listener, I experience sound/music with my body. The tensing of muscles, chills on my skin, unconsciously holding my breath, and the nervous energy of anticipation are all things that drive my listening experience. My imagination of sonic material and musical pacing are similarly attached to these bodily responses. The physical sensations of excitement, suppressed energy, fear, rage, and nostalgia are some of the things that are most present in my mind when I am working with sound. My primary teachers in composition have been John McLaird, Violeta Dinescu, Tim Sullivan, and Roger Reynolds. I also attribute a great deal of my musical thinking to my conducting studies with Russell Guyver, Lucas Vis, and Steve Schick, and my guitar studies with Jonathan Leathwood. I am currently on faculty at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) where I teach composition, conducting, and am the ensemble director.

Visit my discography page to find out about commercial recordings of my music.

Visit the works page for more information on my compositions along with links recordings/performances and scores.