A Brief Photohistory of November

At the Unexpected Film & Arts Festival, 

with Rebecca Purdum Honett and Joe Roy:

Following the performance of The Way Out in Boston, 

with Eric Hewitt and the band:

At the Hollywood Film Festival, 

with John Byford, Jennie Page, and India Patten:

Thanksgiving with my new niece, Gia:

New recording, & some other cool stuff

It's been a while since I posted and I just wanted to share a few good things that have been happening lately:

• After around a year of tweaking, we have FINALLY finished the studio recording of my 2010 piece The Way Out, Train Serenatina No. 1, recorded at Oktaven Audio in New York last November. This has been a crazy, long process but I am so incredibly gratified with the result - easily worth all the work to have it perfect. Many many thanks for the amazing work of Counter)Induction - Steve Beck, Benjamin Fingland, Miranda Cuckson, Jessica Meyer, & Chris Gross, with percussion soloist David Stevens - and a huge HUGE thanks to recording engineer/straight-up-musical-genius Ryan Streber for his literally tireless dedication to getting the recording perfect. A rare artist and an absolute consummate professional. The piece might even end up being be the first piece on my CD... Anyway, here it is - please listen loud and with a good pair of headphones!

• The Way Out will be also featured at the Boston Conservatory this weekend as part of their New Music Festival: Focus Under 40. The festival starts tonight and ends next Friday the 16th. My piece will be performed this Saturday, Nov. 10, at 8pm, but the whole festival should really be amazing - please come and check it out if you're around. I am deeply grateful to Eric Hewitt and the Conservatory for tackling my monster of a piece and for including me as a Resident Composer in the festival.

• Now that recording's finally done, those of you who so graciously donated to my indiegogo campaign more than a year ago in support of this recording will be receiving a copy of the recording as well as a specially commissioned work of art, hopefully within the next few weeks. I didn't want to send anything out until it was all done, but I never expected it would take this long. Thank you so much for your patience and again for supporting some adventurous American art!

• Another piece I recently finished will be performed by Sam Solomon's Boston Conservatory percussion ensemble on December 1. Sam requested a work based on the central rhythmic line of The Way Out, which has resulted in this new work, Manhattan Subway Nocturne, A Way Out for 10 Percussionists. Special special thanks to SZS and BoCo. Please check it out if you're in town. 

• I'm beginning to plan the recording of my last major piece, In Silence, Sand Mandala for trombone, percussion, and keyboard - a huge personal accomplishment that I finished late 2011, after almost a year and a half of work - more about this in the future... Also, in the very early stages of working on some new solo piano music for dear friend and international badass Du Yun. Nothing like working with good friends. 

• Beyond music, our little production company is currently in the process of preparing for the final shoot dates toward completing all footage for our epic, mad upcoming webseries, Starving in Hollywood. For so many reasons, this project has been such a gift, and we are so excited to be producing something massive and crazy - please look for it in the early new year. What a struggle, but this has been a great opportunity to create something fun and edgy, to work with a bunch of awesome people, and personally, to get my hands dirty again producing something big. Feels good!

• To check out scores for The Way Out, In Silence, and some other salient pieces (including my opera), please visit here. 

Much love, dear friends, much love. Those of you who have continued to support me, thanks more than I could say for being true friends. Until next time, keep the faith - the pilgrimage continues...

Starving in Hollywood

Finally got a long overdue project off the ground. Months of slow planning and the excellent efforts of a large group of awesome individuals came together in a recent 4-day shoot (with a handful more planned for the near future) – a massive jumpstart for the shooting of the first season of a new webseries  Rebecca and I have been working on over the last few months with actor/writer/director/producer John J Byford – as well as some old friends like editor/animator/artist Jason K Lind, and very talented new friends like Jakub Kasztalski, who has contributed his mad skills as Director of Photography – in addition to an amazing cast. The project accomplishes a number of goals at once – perhaps most importantly, it has been a chance to do some good work again with a group of genuinely excellent, talented, and hard working people. Both the people and the project have been a real gift to our lives.

For a while now, Rebecca and I have been working on what have amounted to series of short piecemeal projects. While they have all been very worthwhile and while we've added positively to our bodies of work, it nonetheless feels really gratifying to finally be engaging a large and longer-term project again. 

In other news, the long long overdue recording of The Way Out we started back in November is in the very final stages of post-production – and it sounds pretty awesome, if I don't mind saying. Also finished a large and personally very significant music work somewhat recently, but more about both in future posts. 

Until then, keep living the dream my friends. Keep living the dream.