11/15/2020 MM Program at USC: Semester 1

It has been quite some time since I’ve posted. When beginning this section of the site for regular updates back in March, I had no idea what would become of the world in the week that followed, and in the craziness that has been 2020, I allowed myself to let the regular posting of updates elude me, so allow this post to make up for some lost time. Myself and those around me have managed to stay safe during the COVID-19 pandemic, but we remain ever-vigilant, and maintain proper safety and hygiene in order to ensure the wellness of ourselves and those we come into contact with. Over the year, I have relocated to Los Angeles, CA and am at the point of completing my first semester of graduate studies at the University of Southern California in the Department of Choral and Sacred Music. While the online classes have certainly been different than what I initially expected when enrolling last spring, they have been deeply musically gratifying, and I look forward to the oncoming spring when classes will resume. I have also begun taking composition lessons with Dr. Frank Ticheli, who serves on faculty at USC, and have completed a handful of very meaningful projects, which will be self-published soon on this site (stay tuned!). The first was composed as a reaction to atrocities that took place over the summer, using William Butler Yeats’s poem, The Second Coming. The second is an elegy for a dear friend and mentor of mine who passed away last spring, setting texts from William Shakespeare and Sara Teasdale. The third project of the fall has been a much-needed journey into levity and comedy, in setting two of Lewis Carroll’s Puzzles from Wonderland, and their solutions. Look forward to these new works becoming available soon, and please continue to stay healthy, stay safe, and stay vigilant.