Scotland is a beautiful place and its music never fails to hit me right in the feels. (I mean, who doesn't shed a tiny tear at "Parting Glass" or "Wild Mountain Thyme"?) And when I fall in love with a particular type of music, I tend to want to make it my own through songwriting.…
13 October 2019 Los Angeles, California- A local church choir has been thrust into the spotlight as reports are circulating that the choir director's eyebrows have been, prematurely, raptured. "It was truly a miracle," said long-time congregation member and greeter Jim Dennison. "I was sitting in the pews listening to the choir and suddenly I…
9 October 2019 Los Angeles, California Nearing the middle of October, spooky season is in full swing and Halloween celebrants across the nation are gathering their pumpkins, brooms, and ominous soundtracks in preparation for their night of revelry. Halloween has long been a time of community, of neighbors sharing chili on the front porch, children…
The hill was ghostly. Even before finding an old sign revealing its history as an early Christian burial site, I could sense the tension between life and death in the air that chilled my face. It was a place pulsing with potential, yet quiet and lonely as a sleeping giant. Insignificance and eternity confronted me…
Not long ago (though it seems a lifetime), I wrote about modulations. The idea that the dissonance of post-college life would eventually resolve into normalcy was comforting; considering the modulations in music were consoling to me as I felt keenly the sudden transitions I experienced after four years of relatively little change. Several months later,…
I'm reading Gone with the Wind again for what is somewhere between the fourth or seventh time. It seems that anytime I am between books, unsure what to read next, or feeling unsettled, I turn (second to my Bible) to that enormous novel for no better reason than that it is a darn good story. But my…
It is my conviction that one must fall in love to play Schumann well. I did not at first enjoy practicing his Arabeske, Op. 18; while I understood the piece theoretically, I did not truly understand it emotionally or spiritually until I, like the composer, fell in love. Then, all at once, its nuances and…
"He now is struck with wonder by what's wonderful in him. Unwittingly, he wants himself; he praises, but his praise is for himself; he is the seeker and the sought, the longed-for and the one who longs; he is the arsonist— and is the scorched." - The Metamorphoses of Ovid In his Metamorphosis, Ovid paints perhaps…
Dear Readers, Yesterday, I made the common mistake of hitting "publish" before I'd actually finalized a rather sensitive post (a vignette examining a unique and serious job). If you received this post in email format and have already read it, thank you for your readership; however, please note that this post is not yet ready…
A year ago today I picked up a copy of Rupi Kaur's Milk and Honey in a Waterstones in Cambridge. I read it cover-to-cover without sitting and — admittedly — without purchasing it. I was intrigued, but, when I closed it and placed it back on its display, I realized that the fascination I'd felt with…
