From there I went to CalArts where I completed my Master’s in the Performer-Composer program, embracing a hyphenated artistic identity. CalArts was a wonderfully nurturing place of open creativity, experimentalism and the freedom to do transdisciplinary work while deepening and expanding the craft and artistic intentions with which you enter

 

Only to consistently discover something else...

I’m currently based in LA. I grew up on a music farm called Westben in the fields of Canada in a small town called Campbellford. There I saw a community arise and flourish around many diverse instantiations of music, never distancing itself from its environment. I’ve tried never to forget this “sliding-door-opening-to-the-countryside-being-part-of-the-music-itself” metaphor on my own music making path.

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A few years later, I pursued Double Bass Performance at the University of Toronto where I fell in love with being a part of orchestral music but not necessarily being an orchestral musician. I was always curious if a group could make large-scale compositional and navigational decisions together; a related question: what kind of training might be necessary to be an integrated Performer-Composer where music craft and creativity were strong enough to pull that off? I quickly identified that what I loved about music was its creative force for originality within difference expressed in communality.

I transferred to the Jazz program and began studying cognitive science and philosophy concurrently to see if articulations of lived-body experiences and improvisation had any answers to these questions.

\\Welcome//

 

I perform and I compose.

My most consistent compositional drive is for creative small ensembles with voice.

My primary instrument is the bass:

the double bass tuned in 5ths

and the electric bass in multiple tunings,

sometimes with effects. 

What do you hear where you are?