I am an aspiring composer, primarily of the contemporary classical style of music, but also have maintained an interest in popular songwriting. I hold a bachelor’s degree in Music Education from the Fletcher School of Music at East Carolina University, in the state of North Carolina, as well as bachelor of science in Information Systems from North Carolina Wesleyan College, also in North Carolina.

I work as a developer in Information Systems at Wake Forest University, mostly doing data warehouse development and ETL (moving and transforming data) and some linux scripting and powershell scripting. My dream job would be working as a music composer (sigh).

My instrument for my music degree was voice (baritone), and I minored in piano. I also play guitar, but not as proficiently as piano. I am toying with teaching myself oboe because I really enjoyed it in college (group woodwind class). Currently, I am learning to play the saxophone.

My studio includes an HP Z4 G4 i9 CPU, with 64 GB RAM and two 1TB SSD drives, two JBL 305 monitors, a Komplete Kontrol S88 Mk2 MIDI controller keyboard, a Rode NT-1 mic, Steinberg Dorico, Presonus Studio One Pro, PianoTeq 7, BBC SO Core, Orchestral Tools Berlin Orchestra Inspire 1, a couple of instruments from Berlin Orchestra Inspire 2, and a composer cloud subscription to EastWest Opus.

I am currently focusing on a work, which will be four movements, including a sonata, a theme and variations, a pseudo scherzo, and lastly a movement in sonata rondo form; with all adhering to the style common during the romantic period, but of course, with the freedom to incorporate modern tonalities and rhythms.

I’m a voracious reader and currently going through several books, including: Form in Music by Wallace Berry, Sonata Forms by Charles Rosen, Home Recording For Musicians (Dummies series), Orchestration by Jonathan Peters (now completed), and most recently, Adler’s The Study of Orchestration. Books I own but haven’t gotten to yet include Counterpoint (Piston) and Dance and the Music of J.S. Bach (Little & Jenne). It is probably overkill to own three music notation books, but mine include Behind Bars (Gould), Music Notation (Read), and Music Notation in the Twentieth Century (Stone).

My other current reads include Deep Nutrition by Catherine Shanahan and Effortless Mastery by Kenny Werner. I am still lamenting over MusicTech’s decision to cease publishing, but have since subscribed to SoundOnSound. I also subscribe to BBC Music Magazine. Wired magazine is another favorite of mine.

I’m currently working on learning Italian, but also want to start learning German.