Biography

The short version

I started writing music because, in school, my teacher told me and my musically excelling friend that if we wrote something easy enough, our orchestra could play it at the concert. After writing that piece, I didn't compose very much until a little over two years later, when my closest friend and I had a falling out and I used composition to express my grief. It was at that point that I decided I wanted to be a composer instead of a professional violinist.

Music has always been the way I make sense of the world. My work is shaped by memory, literature, and psychology, and I'm drawn to music that makes emotional logic visible — pieces that move with purpose, ask questions rather than answer them, and leave space for a listener to find something of themselves inside. I write in the orchestral tradition, drawn in particular to the structural clarity of Ravel and the emotional weight of Shostakovich, for chamber ensembles, concert band, and orchestra alike.

"The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for."

Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

How I work

I usually don't know what a piece is about until I've finished writing it. The feeling tends to find its way into the music before I have language for it, and I only recognize the shape of it looking back.

Performance has always fed my composition. I play violin, along with French horn and trumpet, and playing in orchestras and bands — including in a leadership role with the Blue Lake Camerata — keeps my writing grounded in what music physically feels like to play. I care about the craft around the notes as much as the notes themselves: clean parts, sensible page turns, and clear expressive markings, because a performer picking up a new piece has no inherited tradition to draw on for how it should go. If I don't tell them, no one else can.

"I don't know what a piece is about until I've written it."

On process

What I am after

I'm not interested in complexity for its own sake, and I'm not interested in music that plays it safe either. The pieces I like best sound inevitable once you've heard them, and are harder to write than they sound.

Beyond the score, I'm developing a story titled Pavane for a Living Girl, a long-form novel exploring craftsmanship and personal history.

Musical background

• Beginnings Violin first, then a whole section

  Violin is my primary instrument, with French horn and trumpet as secondary and tertiary instruments, and earlier experience on piano and trombone. I play in my school's marching band and orchestra.

• Study MPulse and a shift in how I write

  I attended the MPulse Composition Institute, where mentors including Dr. Jeremy Esquer and Dr. Roshanne Etezady pushed me from writing for playback toward writing for real performers — supplying, in the notation itself, a tradition for how my music should be played that doesn't exist yet anywhere else.

• Ensembles Leading and recognition

  A leadership role with the Blue Lake Camerata, and recognition from MPulse and the Bach International Music Competition.

• Now Building the catalogue

  Writing new concert works, preparing submissions to publishers and competitions, and working toward conservatory composition programs.