St. Lawrence String Quartet Reads "The Roots of the Firmament"

When I heard that the St. Lawrence String Quartet was going to be doing a reading of pieces by student composers on campus at ASU, I knew that I didn't want to miss out on the opportunity. I also knew that I didn't really want to take out too much time from finishing up Karelian Soundscapes. So I gave myself a 24 hour period to compose something (really about 4 hours of writing and another 2 of cleaning everything up). The result is this: The Roots of the Firmament. The piece is compact and aphoristic, channeling a bit of Webern via Kurtag and my former professor Michael Hicks.

Blessings of Service & Two New Hymns!

The links to the scores of the two new hymns are at the bottom, please check them out!

I recently attended a meet-and-greet event for graduate students in the Herberger Institute at ASU. I met architects, musicians, dancers, artists, industrial designers, and people whose degree descriptions I didn't understand at all. They were from China and Louisiana, D.C and Sudan, Iran and California. I've got to be honest, it was an exhilarating and welcome change of pace from BYU, where the odds of meeting somebody from a diverse background are much lower.