After wrapping up last school year completely online, music activities have understandably been pretty sparse due to the pandemic. The biggest news came right at the end of the school year when I was notified that my proposal for the UWM Advancing Research and Creativity Grant was selected. That means I received research funding to create new works for solo percussion and live electronics while also recording high-quality videos of new works to help bolster awareness of solo live electroacoustic percussion repertoire. That project will be ongoing for the next year and a half and I have started to acquire a lot of new equipment to get started. I look forward to sharing the progress of that project as it goes along!
More recently, I finally had an opportunity to perform live for an audience for the first time since early March. I played a half-hour percussion duo concert with Andy Miller at St. John’s Cathedral in downtown Milwaukee for a series that they host on Wednesdays. It was a beautiful space, both visually and acoustically, and you can see a picture of our instruments in the space above.
Other than the grant and recent live performance, this summer I did a half-hour solo livestream concert in July to benefit a fundraiser for the Wisconsin Philharmonic. I also recorded a few pieces, including a vibraphone and horn duet with my wife, a fun steel pan duet with “myself” (through video editing), and my marimba solo “Mia,” published by Elision Publications. Those videos can be found here on my website or on my YouTube channel!