I’ve been writing music for as long as I can remember, though I didn’t get any formal musical training until I was 21. You might say I was a late bloomer. While studying music I became attracted to film scoring and pursued a career in Hollywood. I’m mainly known as a music editor with nearly 100 feature film credits to my name ranging from blockbusters like Avengers: Age of Ultron, Guardians of the Galaxy, & Spider-Man 2 to independent films like the hugely successful Hustle & Flow, Geography Club, and The Last Word to TV shows like Desperate Housewives & Go On.
I’ve been fortunate to work with composers such as Tyler Bates, Marc Mancina, Heitor Peirera, John Swihart and Danny Elfman, with whom I’ve worked for over a decade, including co-producing his concert work Serenada Schizophrana. I’ve written additional music for many films, TV shows & for music libraries and have scored 3 feature films on my own, including Jasmine, which recently won the Grand Jury Prize at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival.
I’ve spend the majority of the last two decades contributing my talents to the works of other artists. It has been a privilege and a pleasure and I hope to continue doing so for a very long time. But it’s now time for me to produce an album of my own music. Musical Fantasy will be my first album of original concert works.
A few years ago a violinist friend asked me if I had written anything for string quartet that she and some friends could play. I had never written anything for string quartet and was immediately inspired to do write my first piece for string quartet. I wrote 3 movements in 4 days, the music just spilled out of me. Then a couple of years ago I saw the story of holocaust survivor Alice Hertz-Sommer (www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oxO3M6rAPw) and was inspired by her story to write a piano piece – Fantasia Apassionata.
I have wanted to record these pieces ever since, but have been continually distracted by other projects. At every opportunity I’d go back and tweak the works and each time the desire to record them has grown.
I decided to expand the project from just these two works to a full-length album of chamber concert works, and so the adventure begins.