New music, created for a reason. A person, a place, a title, a celebration, a memory, an ensemble, or simply a creative spark that ignites the creative process.
I need a jumping-off point. Sometimes that arrives as a title. Sometimes it is a place, a person, an image, a list of words, or simply the reason the music needs to exist.
That is the spark. Once something catches, the sound-world begins to appear around it: rhythm, harmony, colour, shape and character.
Steel City was written for the Pittsburgh flute community. As soon as I heard the title, I could hear freight trains, industry, weight and rhythmic machinery, but also the image of a huge, gleaming city made of steel. The title immediately gave me the world the music needed to inhabit.
I love rhythm, colour, harmony, tension and release. I enjoy writing music that can be energetic, cinematic, lyrical, joyful, strange, beautiful or rhythmically obsessive, but it should always communicate something.
Every contemporary technique must earn its place.
They are never there simply because they can be - they need to
contribute, excite, energise and educate.
I want our premiere to feel like just the beginning. I want our music to travel, to find new players, to reach new audiences and most importantly, to be enjoyed again and again.
It needs a conversation, some ideas, and enough information for us to discover what the piece wants to become.
Who is it for? What instrumentation? What is the occasion? What should it celebrate, explore, inspire? What story are we telling?
A title, a phrase, a list of words, a person, a place, a story or image can be enough to set everything in motion. No wrong answers - throw everything at me and we'll see where we end up.
Duration, technical levels, finances, deadline, my attendance, hotels, trains, planes, and anything else the project specifically requires.
Deadlines energise me. Once the project and timeframe are agreed, the music gets made, and I deliver on time and on message.
Ideally (but not always) with me involved. But I remain available for questions, interpretation and practical support as the piece reaches rehearsal and performance.
The commissioner will always be part of the work’s story. Then the music can travel out into the world.
I have been on both sides of this process. I have commissioned music myself, and I know the excitement of receiving a piece that exists because somebody chose to create it for you.
That is what I want the commissioner to feel at the end: thrilled with the music, proud to have helped bring something new into existence, and excited to put it in front of an audience.
I spend much of my life playing, recording, rehearsing, conducting and working directly with other musicians, which also affects how I write.
I care about breathing, balance, practical ranges, fatigue, page turns, rhythm, articulation, intonation and the difference between something being technically possible and something actually feeling good to play.
Particularly with larger ensemble commissions, I do not simply send the files and disappear.
For flute choir projects I will record every individual part, build detailed rehearsal tracks to a tailored click track, and film rehearsal videos explaining how I hear the piece, potential pitfalls, little pieces of advice, points to look out for, etc.
Most of my commissioned work so far has grown naturally from the flute world, because that is the musical community I know from the inside. But the flute is home, not a boundary.
Concert Flute, Alto, Bass, Contrabass Flute, piccolo in every possible combination for recital, festival or personal projects.
From chamber-size ensembles to large flute choirs, including graded writing when the group contains players at different levels.
New combinations and collaborations beyond the traditional flute repertoire are very welcome.
Music written intelligently for the actual level of the players, without treating accessibility as a lack of musical ambition.
Existing material reimagined, rescored or expanded for a different ensemble or context.
If the instrumentation or idea is outside what I have written for before, that may be one of the most interesting reasons to get in touch.
A selection of recent pieces, from solo and duo projects to large flute-ensemble works.
From the first idea through to the premiere, the commissioner remains a core part of the identity of the piece. Your name, dedication, ensemble, occasion or starting idea will forever be a large part of how this new piece enters the world.
You do not need a finished brief. If you have a title, a story, a group of players, an occasion or even the beginnings of an idea, tell me about it.
