Writing Music

This is the first show I was given the opportunity to design for and it is still a favorite. The students worked very hard, the ensemble was the smallest in the history of the group, and we had a wonderful season! 

The show itself is an exploration of mindfulness and meditation. It hinges on vocal samples from an Alan Watts lecture as the primary driving force throughout the production. The core principle of the concept was just being present in the moment.

Human, In Nature is a show that focuses on the connections between people and nature. It was inspired by the network of Mycelium that connects plants to each other. I grew fascinated with this idea when in college for Horticulture, as well as from being inspired by the late Tom Volk during my time at the Blue Stars. (https://archive.botany.wisc.edu/tvolk/)

This season we had a very strong quad section and about 6:10 in the video they play the hardest quad break A class finals has ever seen! It was a lot of fun to write for them and what caps it off is getting to use Michael Jackson's "Human, In Nature" as the closer of the show. 

Plastic World is a show that was inspired by the Plastic Beach album from the Gorillaz. We wanted to feature some possibly well known source material while holding true to our known identity as designers. We also used By The Sea from Sweeney Todd! The musical production was strong, but came along very slowly, and it shows in competitive placement. Without proper time to polish the production, it was hard to compete. Because of the delays in music production, visual production fell far behind schedule and the final props, choreography, and drill design left more to be desired. While the set design did not end up where we expected it to, the show was praised by peers and judges, but lacked the polish needed to place well. 

For Web of Lies, we wanted to change direction slightly in the tone of production, but not in the musicality or composition. We also changed our visual design staff and have been seeing exceptional improvements in the quality and richness of of the visual production. This show focuses on the concept that lies are like a spiders web, and that with more webs, the more tangled things will become. We used some fun source material this year from Tool (Jambi) and Animals As Leaders (The Woven Web). This show was a lot of fun to watch and the kids totally pulled it off! 

This current year's production is called Ember. The main idea is inspired by the phrase, "Spark becomes a flame, flame becomes a fire.". We are being inspired musically by a few source pieces, one primary is the Azula theme from Avatar The Last Airbender. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8ucgojPYq4) We are trying to have a bigger focus on cinemetic percussion as a way to create more immersive musical spaces. We are relying on the finger cymbal as a primary driver of the sonic space. More to come later this spring!

Coming Soon