This afternoon, I put the finishing touches on a brand new piece: a concerto for clarinet and chamber orchestra titled light...pale and angered. The music is a commission from my friend and phenomenal graduate wind conducting colleague at the University of Washington: Chris Mathakul. The performance will feature another graduate student at the UW in clarinet performance: Caitlin Beare. 

This music is a meditation on the state of our society. We all have an inbred desire to live life, to have experiences and to enjoy the stunning world around us. Today the light of life is stifled, caged by the onslaught of screens and cultural pressures to stay busy. This busy-ness saps our light within until it is left pale...and angered. The music reflects this journey as it is to us: beginning pure and innocent, moving through a frantic agitation eventually petering out into nothing.

The premier will occur on February 29th at 4:30pm in the Brechemin Auditorium at the University of Washington, featuring Chris Mathakul conducting and Caitlin Beare on clarinet.

My arrangement of Wagner's Prelude to Tristan und Isolde is available for purchase at ScoreVivo!  Check it out here.

Soundcloud Link

Max 7 Synthesized Accompaniment Interface

UPDATE: The Whitworth Symphony Orchestra gave a fabulous premier of the work on November 19, 2019. Check it out here!

An exciting opportunity presented itself to me in the form of a commission for a new composition. This commission is particularly exciting because it comes from Dr. Philip Baldwin at alma mater, Whitworth University. Dr. Baldwin asked for a piece that features a narrator telling a children's story, while being accompanied by orchestral music. Laura E. Richards' The Golden Windows is the story we chose. It's an excellent story that is nearly begging to be told with musical accompaniment. Once the composition is finished and the performance is complete, I will post a recording of it right here. This is becoming a very exciting project!