I write music that tells stories. I use literature, theater, marimbas, cellos and plenty of jokes.

I also produce creative projects for film, theater and web. And I blog about the future of the arts. And cocktails.

By day I work as Communications Manager at New Music USA.

Film
The Seafarer hits the Festival circuit

The Seafarer hits the Festival circuit

I did not expect to get into the land of film festivals when I started reading Burton Raffel’s translation of The Seafarer in a ratty used copy in my Peabody dorm back in whenever that was. 2004? But here we are. Michael Feldman, who directed the film, and I got to work on submitting our...
Ian Rosenbaum tries out a monologue

Ian Rosenbaum tries out a monologue

Last night I went over to Ian Rosenbaum‘s place, and we went over some of the sketches I’ve got for the new scene 1 of Summer’s Twilight. As usual with a marimba part, you think some things are hard when they’re easy, and you think some things are easy but they’re hard. Sometimes you take...
Best YouTube Comment Ever

Best YouTube Comment Ever

At the very least, it’s the best ever on any of my films. Just as I was celebrating the 1,000 view milestone for The Seafarer I got an email notification about a new comment: Apparently my film is helping students cheat on their homework. This isn’t too much of a surprise, actually. From watching the...
Employees Must Wash Haiku

Employees Must Wash Haiku

Journeyman is a fantastic restaurant. If you haven’t, go eat there. In the bathrooms at Journeyman you won’t see signs that say “Employees must wash hands”. You’ll see some pretty damned funny haiku nicely framed on the wall which meet the same legal requirement. When I read these haiku I thought one thing: Classical music...
Watch Cucumbers & Gin

Watch Cucumbers & Gin

Thanks to the hard work of a lot of brilliant and talented people Cucumbers & Gin is now complete! This project has been an incredible experience, from our Kickstarter campaign, working with backers, through pre-production planning, the incredible day we shot and recorded the project, and through post-production as well, creating an interactive way for...
Watch The Seafarer

Watch The Seafarer

The film version of The Seafarer is complete! Thanks so much to everyone who’s worked on this from concept to shooting through post-production. We did it!
The Song of Newt

The Song of Newt

A couple days ago I got an IM from Victoria Nece: “Can you set this to music?”. She had linked me to the text of Newt Gingrich’s hysterically epic press release. I thought for a moment, and replied that yes, yes I could. Next I e-mailed Jason asking if he could turn around a video...
Final Cocktail: the Shoot My Brother

Final Cocktail: the Shoot My Brother

Shoot my brother. please! Basically, I’m morally obligated to taunt Dennis with his custom cocktail. He’s my brother – I have to. The name of the drink is one thing, but my favorite part is that he has to cut fiddly grapefruit supremes and wrestle with obnoxious plating requirements! This petty triumph, dear reader, is...
A huge thank you

A huge thank you

To Sean for his performance, to Zach for his recording, to Alan, Mike, Kate, Gill, Dave and Ben, our fantastically talented crew, to Gramps and Maxine for welcoming us into their home with all the gear and the noise and the interruption, and to all our backers on Kickstarter for making the whole thing possible....
It's game day.

It’s game day.

I just posted an update on Kickstarter about how today is the day. We’re filming, we’re recording, and we’ve got well over half a ton of stuff if you count the people. Earlier in the week, the forecast said cloudy, rainy and gross. But the sun’s come out, so if our luck holds you can...
Final preparations for Cucumbers and Gin

Final preparations for Cucumbers and Gin

We’re recording on Saturday. Sean and I are rehearsing every couple of days, and putting the finishing touches on his performance. If I could focus only on that, this would be easy. But we’ve got to sort out a film crew that seems to get new members every day (we’re up to five now). We’ve...
The Emilicious

The Emilicious

Emily H is one of those brilliant people who winds up running the government (and she’s got a recipe blog!). She’s a civil servant, working for the NSF, NASA, and now the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, so just remember: she’s on your side, and she’s good at it. This spring, though, every couple of weeks...