"Music is the inarticulate speech of the heart, which cannot be compressed into words because it is infinite." -Wagner

I began my musical journey as a young piano player. I had a natural ear and a teacher that encouraged my parents to keep me involved in music. When I got older I migrated to the guitar and joined a rock band, and before long I was the lead singer in a group that wrote its own songs and would sometimes play in front of sizable audiences.

While the band life was an exciting experience I had always dreamed of being a composer, and in my spare time, I would occasionally compose short piano sketches. I'd grown up enamored with the music from the Batman and Johnny Quest television shows I'd watch, but never believed I'd be skilled or educated enough to create anything comparable myself.

In 2012 I applied to Berklee School of Music in Boston and submitted a jazz piano piece I'd written for a scholarship opportunity. I was accepted and bestowed a grant based on my composition and history as a performer. While at university I studied counterpoint and arranging and was given the chance to train under a professional composer. I learned how to conduct and write for strings in my last year at the college and graduated in 2015 with honors.

I spent time as a music instructor after graduating, and upon hearing my work a colleague encouraged me to further my education by studying Johann Fux's 1725 treatise on counterpoint "Gradus ad Parnassum". This was the same text Mozart, Beethoven and Haydn utilized and he reasoned it would help my development--it certainly did.

I meticulously examined scores from the likes of Wagner, Tchaikovsky, and Brahms among others, and employed the use of highly regarded orchestration books such as Walter Piston's book "Orchestration" to build off of what I had learned. As a certified Protools operator I already knew enough about sound engineering to create virtual orchestrations of any work I composed and used that knowledge to realize my work in a way even the last generation of composers only dreamed of.

Today I am happy to share that I've continued to compose, mostly in what would be considered a "Neo Romantic" style, though I would argue my biggest influences are more closely linked to American film music than anything from the Romantic era.

While my introduction to the world of orchestra music is owed to film and television scores, ultimately I decided I was most called to write music for the concert hall. My greatest aim is to compose an oeuvre of concert music that follows in the footsteps of American composers Samuel Barber and Charles Ives rather than the modernists of the last century. As a melodic writer, this is where I believe I am most suited.

I'll continue to compose and grow and I hope you'll be there to listen. I'll sign off with a quote from Beethoven that I think reflects my own perspective.  It reads, "What I have in my heart and soul-must find a way out. That is the reason for music."