I’m excited to announce that I’m starting a consortium for a 3-4 movement sonata for trumpet and piano with my good friend, trumpet phenom, and fellow WMU alum Sam Gustavson!

We have decided that the piece is going to be about the Coronavirus, both on a global scale as well Sam’s personal experience working in a pharmacy during the pandemic and contracting the disease. Tentatively, the titles for the three movements of the sonata are going to be Chaos, Solitude, and Bloom.

Chaos will depict the sudden and extreme adjustments to the early stages of the virus, with schools and businesses shutting down,  events being cancelled, and pretty much the whole world standing still and going into quarantine. The second movement, Solitude, will recount Sam’s experience with quarantining for two weeks after testing positive for the virus, but will also portray the general feeling of isolation and loneliness felt by many during this time. The final movement, entitled Bloom, will be an optimistic end to the piece, representing our society’s resilience as we more towards some level of normalcy (we’re not necessarily in this stage yet). Since these stages of coping with the virus didn’t always occur in a set order and often overlapped with one another, several motives and themes will recur throughout the three movement structure.

Entry Form

Consortium Fee: $100 ($50 due up front, $50 due upon completion of the piece)
Anticipated Completion: November 30, 2020
Duration: 12-16 minutes
Difficulty: Collegiate/Professional
Benefits to Consortium Members:

• Names of consortium members included on the title page of the score
• Exclusive performance and recording rights until Dec 31, 2021
• Input on musical material and title of piece
• Composer will travel to performances, if able

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions. I’m looking forward to collaborating with everyone on this piece!

Several of my arrangements for marching band and pep band are now available for purchase!

Arrangements include music from How to Train Your Dragon, The Greatest Showman, and Pinocchio, songs from bands Twisted Sister, The Romantics, and Ricky Martin, and pieces by composers Gustav Holst, Leonard Bernstein, and Michael Giacchino. I also have a handful of original compositions for marching band, including the short stand cheers that I wrote for the WMU Bronco Marching Band six years ago.

Band directors who are looking for custom arrangements for next school year are more than welcome to contact me as well! I’m happy to help in any way that I can.

Here is a performance of A Million Dreams from The Greatest Showman, performed brilliantly by the 2019 Utica High School Marching Band!

The saxophone sextet (SAATTB) version of Volcanic Ash is now available through Murphy Music Press! Thank you to Mark Smith and the Quantum Sextet for commissioning this version of the piece and giving an incredible premiere performance at this year’s Coltman Chamber Music Competition, where they earned second place!

It’s been an honor and a pleasure to collaborate with the Donald Sinta Quartet over the past four years! I can’t thank them enough for all of their support, as well as their passion and enthusiasm for my music.

Their album ‘Ex Machina’ released this past weekend and features my piece Volcanic Ash (the album released exactly three years after I first completed the piece!). When I was writing the piece in 2017 I had no idea that it would take me where it has – with performances at concerts and festivals around the world, including this performance at the 2019 Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic.

I’m humbled and grateful for the piece’s success and feel indebted to the Donald Sinta Quartet for their advocacy and for inspiring me to write the piece in the first place. Be sure to check out their extraordinary recording of the piece on ‘Ex Machina’!

I’m super excited to be heading to Central Michigan University School of Music this weekend for two premiere performances of my pieces!

On Saturday, the Central Michigan University Trumpet Studio Septet will be premiering Thermal Whiplash as part of the School of Music’s annual Da Capo Concert. It’s an absolute honor to have a piece included on this showcase concert and I can’t wait to hear how the septet’s doing on the music before their performance next month at the National Trumpet Competition.

On Sunday, the Chamber Singers will be performing Hiraeth on their two concerts (3pm and 7pm). This was not only the first piece I wrote during my master’s at CMU, but also my first time writing for choir in general. I’m thrilled to hear this work come to life by such a talented ensemble!