They played music in New Haven…
Where I grew up, the Shubert Theater was a portal to Broadway. It tested the likes of “Oklahoma” and “My Fair Lady”. Greenwich Village folkies rode the train to play local coffee houses. I heard Beatles albums days before the rest of the world on the rogue Yale student radio station, WYBC. I heard Rostropovich and Milstein play with the New Haven Symphony. I heard among the last performances of an old Benny Goodman and, sadly, a young Janice Joplin. In a neighbor’s living room, I heard graduate student Richard Stoltzman show the world how to play a clarinet.
I told high school friends I would be a composer. I studied clarinet and composition with people associated with Yale. At the University of Rochester, I took as many courses as I could at nearby Eastman School of Music.
But day jobs consumed : first journalism, then software engineering.
I snuck in a few songs for family occasions: my three children had their own lullabies before they were born. Surely my most influential song was a proposal song for Karen Rovner. She liked the song more than my middling voice and said yes.
I didn’t make the time for serious composing until 2014, when our youngest daughter joined her high school choir. I fell in love with the sound and felt compelled to try my hand.
It would appear I am on my third career as a choral composer and lyricist – but I choose to believe I am fulfilling my first passion. As in the best of music, the inevitable presents as a surprise.
Our house on Boston’s North Shore is like an artist’s colony. Karen is a talented abstract painter. We have three grown children, Rosie, Sam and Beca.
Brahms, Broadway and Beatles
My music interests are eclectic and that shows in my work. When I start a piece, nothing is predetermined. It's a long process of strengthening the strong and dropping the weak, finding the core character of the words and music, and thus presenting a style.
One of the most satisfying parts of writing art songs and concert choir pieces is owning the lyrics. I don't have to call somebody if I want to change a syllable. I like thoughtful, sweet and bittersweet, but not sentimental. I like evocative more than obvious. I want to help singers earn their audience’s emotions.
So that more can sing my pieces, I try to limit the difficult sections. I try to offer something fun for all parts and most of all, a chance to breathe!