Writings
Academic writings
Enhancing the Social Justice Outcomes of El Sistema-Inspired Programs by Integrating Kingian Nonviolence Philosophy This was the research portion of my doctoral dissertation at the Eastman School of Music which I defended in March 2022. You can download a PDF copy of the dissertation or watch a virtual presentation I gave of this research in June 2022 from the ARTs + Change Conference hosted by the University of Rochester’s Institute for the Performing Arts.
Music From Dreams in the Compositional Process: An Online Survey This essay was written as my term paper for the doctoral seminar "Making New Music Now" at the Eastman School of Music in Spring 2020. You can also watch my virtual presentation of this paper from the 2021 Research on Contemporary Composition Conference at the University of North Georgia.
Why has El Sistema Survived and Thrived?: Comparing the Political Histories of Venezuela's "El Sistema" and Brazil's "Projeto Espiral" This essay was written as my term paper for the doctoral seminar "Music and Politics" at the Eastman School of Music in Fall 2019.
Modernist Classical Music on The Bad Plus's For All I Care This essay was written as my term paper for the doctoral seminar "Jazz/Classical Interactions" at the Eastman School of Music in Spring 2019. A less academic version of this paper was published on Ethan Iverson’s (the former pianist of The Bad Plus) blog Do the Math.
Musical Metaphor in John Luther Adams' Become Ocean This essay was written as my term paper for the doctoral seminar "From Metaphor to Paraphrase" at the Eastman School of Music in Spring 2019.
Leonardo Balada's Guernica as Musical Ekphrasis This essay was written as my term paper for the doctoral seminar "Analyzing Music in Multimedia" at the Eastman School of Music in Fall 2018.
Robin Holloway's Second Concerto for Orchestra: A Masterpiece Bridging Romanticism and Modernism This essay was written as my term paper for a course on post-tonal theory at the University of Colorado-Boulder in Spring 2011.
Good Things Come to Those Who Wait: An Inclusive Long-Term Approach to Aesthetic Judgments This essay was written as my term paper for a class on music aesthetics in Fall 2010, and was published in the 2011 edition of Consortium: A Journal of Crossdisciplinary Inquiry.
The Use of Variation Form in Frederic Rzewski's 'The People United Will Never Be Defeated!' This was written as my Senior Music Theory Project in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Music from Baldwin-Wallace College, completed and defended in May 2009.
Non-Academic writings
Blog and Photos from my Appalachian Trail Hike - During my two-month hike of the New England portion of the Appalachian Trail in the summer of 2016 which inspired my Appalachian Trail Symphony, I blogged (whenever I had access to a computer!) and posted my best photos. Read to get a sense of my day-to-day experiences on the trail!
Blog and Photos from my Fulbright Year in Brazil - I spent 2013 in Brazil as a Fulbright scholar studying that country’s music education programs that are inspired by Venezuela’s famed ‘El Sistema’ and blogged weekly so you can follow my adventures throughout the country.
Social Inclusion - An article I wrote for the December 2014 issue of The Ensemble, the newsletter for the U.S. and Canadian El Sistema movement.
Letters to a New Vegan - I, along with 31 others, contributed letters to this book, published by Lantern Books, in the spirit of Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet.