From 2007 to 2011 I studied with liturgical whiz and rock-minimalist dynamo Nancy Galbraith at Carnegie Mellon University. I played piano and harpsichord on her album Other Sun.

At Carnegie I wrote Tailypo: Ghost Story for Orchestra, a gothic tone poem about a vengeful critter that wants its tail back. You can listen to the whole piece here.

In 2012 I wrote Songs for Halloween, art song settings of internet creepypasta, which tenor Joshua Konick premiered (you can hear his rendition of “The Laughing Girl” here). The same year I wrote incidental music for Scott Courlander’s comedy Medieval Story Land. Writing a series of cues for long, intricate sword fights is something I recommend everyone try at least once.

In 2014 I conducted Mel Marvin’s gospel musicalization of Elmer Gantry at Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia. Vadim Feichtner taught me to stop waving around my arms like an idiot the whole show.

In 2015 the Capital Hearings premiered my choral composition The Astronomer (an a cappella setting of a technophobic but beautiful Walt Whitman text), and later on they commissioned a series of Baseball Songs from me as well. You can hear their beautiful recording of The Astronomer on their album When the Night is New wherever music is streamed. That same year I wrote music and lyrics for Caps for Sale, a tableau of tarantellas, polonaises and other European dances for all ages. It premiered at Adventure Theatre MTC in Bethesda, Maryland and toured nationwide, ending its run at the New Victory Theatre in New York City.

In 2018 I wrote music and lyrics for Blueberries for Sal at Adventure Theatre, a set of songs about bears, birds and buckets in which I got to play an orchestra of toy instruments and multitrack myself Paul McCartney-style. The same year I premiered Georgia Stitt’s Snow Child, a bluegrass musical about snowmen, survival and stew. Lynne Shankel wrote the transcendent string-band orchestrations. Later on I premiered Andy Mitton’s heart wrenching pop-rock opera about Jane Goodall and her improbable life, Me…Jane.

In 2019 I premiered Kait Kerrigan and Bree Lowdermilk’s electronic children’s musical about the children of NASA visionaries, Earthrise. I music directed an Into the Woods at Ford’s Theatre that won me a Helen Hayes Award! I took a journey through Deborah Wicks LaPuma’s sassy brassy snarling score to Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! at the Kennedy Center.

Starting in 2022, my musicalization of Make Way for Ducklings had rolling premieres in DC and Boston, followed by several more productions around the country. Additionally, I’ve continued to workshop my and Hope Villanueva’s mystical coming-of-age musical Vanishing Girl as well as my and Michael Bobbitt’s 1950s Halloween confection Monster Mash. In 2024 I returned to Ford’s to conduct their Little Shop of Horrors, as well as their star-studded gala featuring Brian Stokes Mitchell, Josh Groban, Bernadette Peters and Susan Eagan.

I’ve conducted the band at Ford’s Theatre (DC), Arena Stage (DC), Signature Theatre (VA), Round House Theatre (MD) and 1st Stage (VA). 

On the horizon: I’ll be returning to Signature Theatre for their winter production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and to Ford’s Theatre for Sister Act in the spring of 2025.