In early August, I returned to Greenville, SC where I now work as a web developer for my alma mater maintaining the university’s website and meddling in social media. On the side, I continue to compose and arrange. In addition, I’m beginning to have some sporadic performances of my work. On October 1st, my sister performed my Three Movements for Violin and Piano on her senior violin recital. Jubilate Deo is slated to be performed as part of a High School Choral Festival/Competition later this month and The Dawning will make on an appearance on a graduate voice recital next semester. (Side note: if you or someone you know is performing one of my works, I’d love to hear about it.) I am also very happy to be singing with the Rivertree Singers in Greenville. We have a few Christmas concerts planned, so keep an eye out for announcements about that in the coming weeks and months.

Be sure to “like” it on Facebook and share with your friends!

Click here to listen to the recording.

Click here for more information on the music I wrote for my graduate recital.

Stunning in its simplicity, this beautiful setting of “God Be With You Till We Meet Again” for SATB Choir and string quartet is sure to become a favorite way to close any time of worship.

My graduate composition recital is next week and I couldn’t be more excited! I’ve been waiting to do a recital like this since my freshman year and the time has finally come. Take a look at my recital page to see what I’ll be premiering. You can also read some program notes that I have written about the pieces to inform you of some of my compositional process and to fill you in on what’s happening in the music. Also, if you haven’t already, please add the Facebook event to your calendar to help me promote my recital.

In other news, God has provided abundantly for my summer missions trip with MMT! My expenses are nearly paid for; I only lack a few hundred of the 5,000-dollar total. Please pray for an effective ministry this summer in Europe.

Click here to read more about this summer’s trip.

Today, BJU presented a brand-new documentary on Bob Jones, Sr. entitled “Seeds.” The documentary explores his childhood, upbringing, and various circumstances in his life that eventually led to him founding Bob Jones College over 80 years ago. I was privileged to be able to contribute a small amount of background music for it. Not much – about 2 and 1/2 minutes in total (most of the audio was pre-recorded).

The cues I wrote were for a scene describing the Civil War and its negative effects on the southern plantation economy and a scene in which Bob Jones describes his mother and the emotions he felt as a young child when she died. With permission from ShowForth, I am posting the two cues that I wrote and recorded for the documentary. You can watch the entire documentary on BJU.edu as well as purchase a DVD copy from ShowForth Videos.

• Cue 2 – “Civil War”
• Cue 4 – “Mother”

My choral (SATB) arrangement of O Thou in Whose Presence will be published with SoundForth in their Spring 2011 choral releases. In the last few weeks, I revised it and they have already recorded the demo CD and engraved it. It will going to print next week and will be available early next year.

I’m excited to finally have my first published piece out there (soon). Hopefully many more will follow in the near future.

“Why, this is very midsummer madness!”

• O Thou in Whose Presence (SATB choir, piano)
• Benediction (SATB choir, string quartet)

I am thrilled with the quality of the singers’ work in this recital especially considering they only rehearsed these songs once right before the recital. Good work, all! The recordings feature my teacher, Dan Forrest, at the piano and fellow composition major John Hudson conducting. The string quartet was comprised of Sam Arnold, violin; Lydia Anglea, violin; Ron Sondergaard, viola; and Chris Erickson, cello. Enjoy!