It is said that the shortest distance between the mind and the heart is story. The power of story to teach, to shape, and to heal is evident throughout human history—as is the power of music to do the same. There is a narrative, as timeless as it is polarizing, that has been passed down from one of Earth's most ancient cultures—one of a father, a son, and a command from God. "Abraham, take your son Isaac—your only son, whom you love—and sacrifice him as a burnt offering on Mount Moriah." Abraham and Isaac's emotional and uncertain journey to Moriah, Abraham's resolve in the unspeakable moment he raised the knife, the divine intervention just before it plunged—these scenes and images remain with us, as unsettling as they are profound.

Akedah is an inherently dramatic multi-movement work designed to showcase a Wind Ensemble's ability to perform Sinfonietta-scale pieces. The piece stretches the dynamic spectrum, utilizing a range of extended techniques and orchestrational pyrotechnics.

It is said that the shortest distance between the mind and the heart is story. The power of story to teach, to shape, and to heal is evident throughout human history—as is the power of music to do...

When choosing to set a poem to music as an art song, I knew from my Creative Writing studies in American Literature that there was one poem that demanded new life in music. It is a poem describing every person's inmost longing to seek and find the one person with whom they have a perfect connection and understanding.

In setting the original poem of the same name by Walt Whitman, I focused on the concept of finding one single, special person among a huge multitude of others. I illustrate this in the first line by presenting a dissonant cacophony of many "voices," resembling the chaos of a crowd. However, once the "one" appears as a character, all the other voices in the crowd fade away, leaving the speaker to exult in their unique connection. The speaker's reflections on her relationship with her "perfect equal" lead her through many emotions, from the greatest exultation and ecstasy to a final state of peaceful bliss.

When choosing to set a poem to music as an art song, I knew from my Creative Writing studies in American Literature that there was one poem that demanded new life in music. It is a poem describing...

When my would-be father-in-law passed away one month after my engagement, I was unable to articulate any of my emotions in words. For almost a year and a half, they have remained lodged in my soul, dormant. After participating in two memorial services in the following months, my emotions began to take tangible shape in the form of a phrase—Caught Up in Clouds.

Glimpses of a melody, distant echoes of a song from somewhere far-off, began to appear as I stood at the graveside by my grandfather, accompanied by a salute of military cornet as we remembered him. Not words, after all, but music—the one means of harmonizing the grief, the fond reminiscence, the future hope. The tones that emerged recalled the parting words we gave to my father-in-law in memoriam: not "goodbye" but "see you later."

When my would-be father-in-law passed away one month after my engagement, I was unable to articulate any of my emotions in words. For almost a year and a half, they have remained lodged in my soul,...

Some composers found their love of music at the symphony hearing Brahms or Beethoven—I discovered mine from the 8-bit beeps and boops of my family's Super Nintendo. Though I can't remember all the details about experiencing these early video games, I have carried their music with me ever since--a sonic feast as exotic and evocative as the worlds the games offered us to explore.

Clash of Wills is an homage the vast realm of video game music. I have always been struck by game scores' daring pyrotechnics in orchestration, rich use of meaningful thematic development, and compelling sense of narrative urgency and drama infused into the music. I hoped to recreate this last feature in particular by depicting an iconic scene encountered time after time in this medium of storytelling: confronting the game's final boss. As the player meets his or her last obstacle, these two forces--protagonist and antagonist--are fated to clash. Will the hero emerge victorious? Or will it be... game over?

There is a rhythm permeating all living things, embedded in the behavior of organisms at every level of complexity. From the morning call of the swallow to the cicada's assertive buzzing, there are three progressive stages as a sound increases in speed and intensity. The legendary Japanese playwright Zeami named these stages Jo (beginning), Ha (breaking), and Kyu (rapid), observing that 'every phenomenon in the universe develops itself' according to this steadily building progression. Jo-Ha-Kyu became the foundation Zeami's plays and the basic structure of Noh—a traditional Japenese fusion of dance, song, and theater. I wrote Insen Dances as a musical homage to Noh, Jo-Ha-Kyu, and Zeami's aesthetic ideals—after all, Zeami himself wrote that 'music is the soul of the Noh.'

There is a rhythm permeating all living things, embedded in the behavior of organisms at every level of complexity. From the morning call of the swallow to the cicada's assertive buzzing, there are...

Intensity is a quintessential show piece featuring a blazingly impressive solo part against a chordal ostinato. The agility of the solo melody and the rhythmic complexities and intricacies present within the piece form an electrical atmosphere of sheer agitation bringing forthexcitement and suspense within the minds of the hearers. The piece is short and extremely dynamic making it the perfect choice for a concert-ender or encore.

Intensity is a quintessential show piece featuring a blazingly impressive solo part against a chordal ostinato. The agility of the solo melody and the rhythmic complexities and intricacies present...

Received 1st Place in the Voices of Change Composition Competition (2015).

Program Note: Allow me to set the stage. The date is November 9, 1938. The air is cool, calm, and very still. Distant echoes of a Jewish chant, the Sh'ma, drift in like whispers on the coattails of the wind.

Suddenly, a scream shatters the silence. Sounds of breaking glass, running footfalls, and muffled gunshots pierce the night. Civilians, led by Nazi SS officers, had begun a series of attacks on Jewish residents and their families throughout Germany and Austria. Their victims were beaten, their property destroyed, and by the end of the night, 91 Jewish people had lost their lives.

Though mostly property was destroyed, this night was the inauguration of a much longer and more infamous persecution of the Jewish people, known to us as the Holocaust. As for this night, the broken glass littering the streets, like so many pieces of shattered crystal, earned the night the name it now bears—Kristallnacht.

Received 1st Place in the Voices of Change Composition Competition (2015).

Program Note: Allow me to set the stage. The date is November 9, 1938. The air is cool, calm, and very still. Distant...

M51a -- the Whirlpool Galaxy was born from a single seed of a question in my mind: “If outer space could be heard as music, what would it sound like?” From my earliest childhood years, I have been utterly fascinated with outer space, even aspiring to become an astronaut for the entirety of about four months. Imagine my surprise and excitement as a musician, then, when I discovered in my research that certain black holes actually “sing,” emitting frequencies that can be translated into musical pitches! For example, the black hole in the Perseus Cluster “sings” a B-flat note that is fifty-seven octaves below middle C. From there, a storm of inspiration took over as I attempted to construct the music of space.

The other cosmic phenomena from which I drew inspiration—and the piece’s title—is the Messier 51a “Whirlpool Galaxy.” It is a galaxy notable for its pristine aesthetic beauty and the fact that it is shaped according to the “Golden Spiral,” which is a manifestation of the Fibonacci series of numbers. The percussion instruments on-stage are arranged in the shape of one of the arms of the Whirlpool Galaxy.

I knew I had to assemble a unique palette of sounds for the piece, ones that sounded unfamiliar and unearthly (literally!). There are well over a hundred different sounds featured in this piece, from a wide variety of exotic percussion instruments to a sizable battery of digital sounds that I modified and sequenced myself. Thus, M51a -- the Whirlpool Galaxy is a marriage of two genres (electroacoustic music and multi-percussion solos) and an adrenaline-pumping duet between the percussionist and the electronic track.

M51a -- the Whirlpool Galaxy was born from a single seed of a question in my mind: “If outer space could be heard as music, what would it sound like?” From my earliest childhood years, I have...

The piece is inspired by a trip that I took to Thailand a few years back. While I was there, I got to witness the first rains of the Monsoon season. I saw the landscape change almost instantaneously from a dry, cracked land to a flooded marshland. I wanted to reflect that volatility in my music. There are also several programmatic aspects of rain included in the piece, such as the syncopated rhythms and the presence of a bass drum to represent thunder.

I composed this Percussion Quartet for four percussionists on mallet instruments (And a couple of miscellaneous percussion instruments). It was premiered by the Pepperdine University Percussion Ensemble.

The piece is inspired by a trip that I took to Thailand a few years back. While I was there, I got to witness the first rains of the Monsoon season. I saw the landscape change almost instantaneously...

In Greek mythology, it is well known that the hero Odysseus had a brief encounter with creatures known as the Sirens—creatures who would enchant approaching sailors with their irresistible singing voices, driving them to crash their ships on jagged rocks in an attempt to reach the singers. Odysseus survived by plugging the ears of his sailors with beeswax so they could not hear their song. What is perhaps less known is that the legendary musician Orpheus had a much more dangerous encounter with the Sirens long before Odysseus had even been born. This piece depicts that tale, an episode from an epic made alive in music...

As the story features Orpheus as its hero, the piece extensively features the Harp (emblematic of Orpheus' signature instrument). This is a perfect piece to showcase a skilled Harpist's abilities!

In Greek mythology, it is well known that the hero Odysseus had a brief encounter with creatures known as the Sirens—creatures who would enchant approaching sailors with their irresistible singing...