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I’ve finally been home for a full month for the first time since late March. In July, I finally set up my desk, which always marks when I start to settle into a new home. It’s my favorite place to be: somewhere I can shut the rest of the world out and make things that mean so much to me. In this new home, I actually have my own office–yes, with a door and everything. After nearly ten years of setting up my desk in the living room (or wherever else it could go), I have my own space. In this office, I have my desk, a whiteboard for project management and to sketch musical ideas, my electronic drums and malletSTATION permanently set up for MIDI input and overall jam sessions, and space for a chair to read books (or watch brain rot on social media). It’s where I take my therapy sessions. It’s where I can be my truest creative self. And in a space I get morning light, I feel so inspired to make a cup of coffee and make something new. This past month, I made the most of this space by having what I call a “composing marathon.” Between working my remote publishing job, composing, arranging, and settling into our new-to-us rental home, I’ve been trying to keep up with it all. It’s not been easy, but I’m somehow making it work. I’m still standing. I’m still going. As my decorative mug at the center of my desk says, “God has cursed me for my Hubris and my work is never finished.” Honestly? I wouldn’t have it any other way. That brings me to what I accomplished in July. As a composer, I recently finished two works: Ari’s Repose, composed for Marco Schirripa’s Pixel Masterworks consortium, is an eleven minute long piece for solo marimba (5-octave) and track. It takes two tracks from my 2021 original soundtrack for the Ari’s Journey video game and adapts them in a concertino-type work. Excerpted from the Program Notes, The first movement, Ari’s Lament, explores the protagonist’s grief after losing their father: not through a formal structure of mourning, but as an intense blend of equal parts sorrow and celebration. While adapting it for this consortium, I lost my own father. What began as a fictional lament became deeply personal, a kind of musical anchor during that time. The marimba soloist echoes the original piano part and notable accompaniment parts, punctuating key arpeggios and melodies. Near the end, two voices emerge—Ari and their father—reaching for each other across time. The final silence has taken on a profound meaning for me: one of gravity, loss, and acceptance. The second movement, Ari’s Journey: Reprise, begins in reflection and builds toward resolve. Motifs from across the soundtrack appear and slowly grow to the triumphant Ari’s Journey main theme. Here, the soloist takes on the role of the electric guitar, adapted to a marimbistic quality, with expressive runs and grooves that bring the piece to a powerful close.
Descansos, composed for the Ninkasi Percussion Group, was composed for their upcoming performance at the 2025 Midwest Clinic. Through using the concept of “ghost-bikes” as a gateway to a broader idea, this piece memorializes those who lost their lives far too soon.
Audio mockups of these works will be available soon over on my Soundcloud. I am currently working on other projects that consist of marching band arranging, sound design, a new chamber work for saxophone and percussion, a new work for choir and electronics, and more.
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