• 2017 Sept 17: Learning the Organ

    September 17, 2017 10:30

    Teenage years are frequently a time of rebellion, and I was no exception. My mother was a Brahms, Tchaikowski nut, and she played that music on our stereo throughout my childhood. When I was 14 or so mom found a music teacher who would come to the house (being a single working mother, this was a logistical necessity). He was a professor of music at the local CSU and made an exception about home lessons for me. At the opportune time he started me on the Bach Two Part Inventions (written specifically for students) and I was hooked. So my teenage peers were coming home with Grateful Dead LPs, while I played Bach fugues on the piano for hours! Oh, the scandal! (Actually, it was somewhat.)

  • Aria (piano solo)

    August 04, 2015 14:32

    Friends of mine are still struggling through the hideous experience of the wife's father finally succumbing to cancer, and the husband's father experiencing an unexpected heart attack, requiring quadruple bypass surgery that went fine, but subsequent infection and other complications required an induced coma, etc. from which he hasn't yet awakened. All of this all at once. (more ↠)

  • November 2014: Rosetta Mission Comet Probe

    November 12, 2014 15:53

    Back in 2010 I had the privilege of writing the film score for a movie about the Rosetta mission to land a probe on a comet. To make this film, Lego contributed what looks like a dump-truck worth of Legos to simulate the comet, build a model of the lander, etc. My favorite moment in the film is when an astrophysicist lady — someone whom you wouldn't normally associate with displays of passion ... (more ↠)

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