Featured Projects
COWBOY ROUNDS
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Bright Shiny Things
My debut album Cowboy Rounds reimagines a collection of folk songs from the John and Ruby Lomax 1939 Southern States Recording Trip archive at the Library of Congress. Using the text and vocal contours of the original field recordings as a foundation, each track weaves an intricate sonic tapestry of processed loops that reflect the source material's grit. The multi-dimensional songs explore themes of loneliness, oppression, and paranoia that form alarming parallels to the issues plaguing contemporary American society today.
ROMAN
ROMAN, an AI opera in two acts, questions the morality of designing intelligent machines to exhibit human-like behaviors.
Through a fictitious story about an AI virtual assistant committing murder after being fed degenerate training data, this work explores the future legal ramifications of crimes committed by AI, the reach of male toxicity, the plight of virtual echo chambers and polarization, and the paradox of developing human-like computers to work in tandem with increasingly machine-like human workforces. ROMAN implores us to hold a mirror to our perceived values and calls an essential question: If we train autonomous AI with our concepts of morality, will the machines of the future follow our rules?
ISLA
Isla, scored for flute, vibraphone, and electronics, is a remix of a song titled Isla de Niños, by Elisa Ferrari. The work fragments the original stems of Ferrari’s song to create an alternative setting of her poignant lyrics, while the flute and vibraphone exchange short melodic phrases throughout. This music video, made by Elisa Ferrari during the COVID-19 pandemic for 2021 Cal State Fullerton Online New Music Festival, features flutist Sara Andon and percussionist Nick Terry from Brightwork New Music.
O BURY ME NOT
O Bury Me Not was commissioned by the New World Symphony and is a re-imagination of an original 1939 field recording performed by Frank Goodwyn of Sarita, Texas. This particular performance arises from a larger project conducted throughout the Southeastern United States by pioneer musicologist and folklorist John Lomax.
Throughout the work, a series of melodic landscapes unfold as the bass trombone soloist plays an expressive role that mirrors the field recording’s plaintive candor. Besides deriving melodic material from the tune, I was also inspired by extra musical factors, such as the source recording’s low fidelity. The piece concludes with three layers of the tune at different pitch transpositions and speeds. Here the undoubtedly countless arrangements of the song are embraced by folk music’s communal paradigm.
NOVEL MUSIC
The pandemic challenged us in ways we could never imagine. For some it was a time to reflect on our purpose as artists, teachers, and community leaders. We found new ways to engage in our practices virtually and poured our energy into the issues/ideas that matter most.
Novel Music was borne out of a desire to democratize music creation with software that engages musicians from all backgrounds. My devices are designed to encourage exploration of algorithmic and generative music concepts through easy-to-navigate user interfaces.
Designing musical tools for others is not traditionally an activity for composers, but for me it is another form of artistic expression. It has been endlessly rewarding to see what musicians across the globe create with my software.