Movin' On Up

A couple quick updates from LIFE™. 

1. This summer, I will be back at what feels like my home away from home or enlarged Mahler Hut, the Brevard Music Center up in the North Carolina mountains. I'm going back as the composition studio's Teaching Assistant which includes making sure the new music ensemble runs as smoothly as summer festival new music ensembles can...

2. Very excited to head up to Bloomington, Indiana to begin my master's degree in composition this August at Indiana University. For the past 5 years or so, I've had this Clark Kent/Superman relationship to composing. By day, I was teaching (or learning to teach) music at the K-12 level and by night, I was composing with the spare time I had accumulated. These next two years are especially exciting for the simple fact that composing and learning to compose will be my main focus instead of having to juggle it with a bunch of other things.  I've also had this special place in my heart for composers that just seem to be "learned"; John Harbision talking about studying every Bach cantata or Elliott Carter talking about Boulanger's counterpoint lessons. Those stories have always excited me simply because, not formally studying myself, I have immensely looked up to composers (and people from other fields) who have gotten the most out of an education.