PERSONAL STATEMENT

In much of my music I attempt to give my audience a stimulating dramatic journey, at times emotional and at times titillating. Energy manifests itself in technical virtuosity for the performers and a stream of ideas that challenge the mind and ear of the listener. Being a performer myself, I draw upon the excitement of live music-making for inspiration.

I have always been a musician and I grew up with one foot in rock music and the other in the standard classical repertoire (particularly orchestral music) that permeated my home. I was always driven to create in response to things that moved me, whether it be words or music. I am awed by the creative powers of the imagination and my personal goal is to use my own to its fullest for as long as my health (mental and physical) allows for it.

Success to me is measured first by my being able to complete a composition and second by its being performed and heard by others. My only interest in financial success is for the purpose of giving life and form to new work. The desire to make new work is the same desire to communicate with the world.

The sounds that formed me run a wide gamut from music heard on the radio, on TV, in the movies, in concerts and in my classrooms to music made with friends and other musicians. They also include the sounds of nature and the city, the sound of speaking, yelling, crying, and laughing, the sound of work and play, and the sound of silence. In assembling compositional responses to these sounds I employ a wide range a techniques drawn from earlier composers, other artistic disciplines, games, events, devices and anything else that presents itself. I enjoy using both old techniques and those which I believe to be products of my own imagination. I love to build things; I love structure. But I also love freedom and the random urges of the brain and spirit.

For me, the concept of improvising embraces true spontaneity and, on some level, a rejection of past forms. I typically do not want to or try to improvise within a preexisting tradition. Improvisation, for me, extends down to the foundation of a musical work: its form and its raw material.

As life is a journey, so is my pursuit of expression of the human spirit. Art is action. I believe it is one of the most rewarding activities of humankind, and is a form of worship and thanksgiving.