I was stoked when Dr. David Howard, Associate Director of Choral Activities at the University of Oklahoma, approached me with the idea to create a rousing 3-way medley for the Glee Club's appearance at the 2025 IMC Tenor-Bass Choral Consortium. We spent the summer and early fall of 2024 workshopping an arrangement for tenor solo, men's chorus, and piano, then returned to the piece in early 2025 to add a few color instruments. Going back and forth with Dr. Howard until we both liked the final product was a wonderful collaborative experience!

Originally intended to be an entirely solo project, Septemundos grew with time into one of the most collaborative ventures of my career. Under my direction as composer and recording engineer, 9 student musicians combined to record over 60 solos, and the OU Men's Glee Club and OU Women's Chorus each recorded 7 choral segments. Remotely, string quartet ATLYS and the Czech National Symphony Orchestra overdubbed some portions. And audio engineer Ioannis Andriotis helped master the album for commercial distribution. Every person involved elevated my music to new heights!

 I was asked to provide music for a couple short films in the 2022 Red Carpet Film Festival. The second of these, Found, saw me working via email with director Gabe Seaton to produce music in the vein of John Williams' adventurous Indiana Jones score. Given a detailed breakdown of desired musical moods and styles, I delivered to the director a Williams knockoff that exceeded his expectations.

 I was asked to provide music for a couple short films in the 2022 Red Carpet Film Festival. The first of these, Killing Ghosts, saw me working via email with director Lexi Gomme to craft a suspense score with a comedic flavor. With simple instructions to match intended moods throughout the film, I created music that thoroughly satisfied the director in just a couple days.

No less than twenty musicians participated in my senior composition recital, and I owe the concert's success to their talent, their communication, but most importantly, their relentless enthusiasm for my work. Through meticulous scheduling, I managed to spend several rehearsals with everyone, receiving ample opportunities not just to workshop my music but to get to know some wonderful musicians and what they are capable of.

University of Oklahoma musicians Andrew (violin), Jadyn (flute), Travis (clarinet), Evan (vibraphone), and Josh (cello), as well as OU alumnus Benjamin Krumwiede (piano) formed a makeshift Pierrot ensemble to bring to life three gentler movements of my Muses. I admired this group's rapid absorption of the musical material as well as their natural synergy, the latter of which made for a magical performance.

University of Oklahoma percussionists Carlos, Evan, and Michael blew me away with their rapid mastery of my experimental percussion trio Drei. It was wonderful to hear my suggestions and tweaks heeded and implemented in real time, but perhaps the best aspect of this collaboration was Evan's willingness to answer a variety of questions I had throughout the composition process concerning percussion writing and notation.

University of Oklahoma musicians Quentin (trumpet 2), Eric (horn), Chris (tuba), Connor (trombone), and Harlie (trumpet 1) generously granted me their time and talent to put together a recording of my brass quintet Ursidae. While scheduling rehearsals to comply with pandemic-era restrictions proved challenging, all five gave it their all and worked cheerfully with me to produce a fine performance well within my artistic vision.

Dr. David Howard, Associate Director of Choral Activities at the University of Oklahoma, was gracious enough to help me put together a recording of my choral work The Fear of the Lord, even in the midst of the COVID pandemic and all its performance limitations. Able to attend all the rehearsals, I enjoyed working with Dr. Howard for several weeks to bring my piece to life in a manner with which both he and I were satisfied.

Dr. Mark Pretzel, Director of Orchestral Activities at Baker University and my former piano teacher, contacted me in early 2020 about writing a piece suitable for his chamber-size orchestra. Settling on strings and harp alone, I wrote the four-hymn medley The Soul's Only Hope. Dr. Pretzel and his ensemble liked the piece well enough to rehearse and perform it during their fall semester of 2020.

University of Oklahoma musicians Sami (oboe), Jared (bassoon), and Anthony (alto saxophone) put together a beautiful performance of my woodwind trio Going to the Sun. As with all my university collaborations, I learned a lot by talking to the musicians about their instruments' strengths and limitations.

After writing the first volume of Constellations: A Suite for String Orchestra for my sister, she talked to her orchestra teacher, Michael Hanf of Olathe East High School, about performing some of the movements. He ultimately ended up using only the fourth movement in the orchestra's spring concert, but I had the chance to hear and receive feedback on most of the rest of the suite at a reading session earlier that year.

Game designer Nico Lugo heard of me through his college professor – my mother – and requested a background track for a VR game he was developing. Though out of my area of expertise, I had some great conversations with him via email to pinpoint the kind of music he was looking for and produced a piece that worked to his satisfaction.

University of Oklahoma musicians Leonor (flute) and Ethan (clarinet) produced a fantastic performance of my difficult work Duo for Flute and Clarinet in a remarkably short amount of time. Besides playing well, both musicians proved immensely helpful in teaching me the ins and outs of woodwind playing techniques, especially how to notate unusual ones most effectively.

Filmmaker Foster Solomon reached out about using or adapting some music he heard on my YouTube channel for the film he was currently shooting. Ecstatic to work on my first film score, I obliged him with four cues. Though the collaboration took place exclusively online (as we live in different states), we were able to identify key moods and points of improvement without a hitch.

For the first-ever public performance of a piece of mine, University of Oklahoma musician Brianna turned in a moving rendition of my piano composition Hypothermia. While being a pianist myself aided me in writing the piece, working with Brianna taught me to play to musicians' strengths and to listen carefully to their specialized perspectives.

Following the incredibly fun experience of reading one of my works with a makeshift orchestra in 2017, I wanted to do it again. Gathering as many musicians as I could, we took a crack at one of my tracks from The Survival Games: CaptainSparklez. Though the percussion section was absent for a field trip, the rest of the students present generated some takes astoundingly close to the sound I was going for in my score.

A couple high school teachers, aware of my hobby of writing music, suggested I try to put together an ensemble to play a composition. With their support, I managed to gather around two dozen of my peers to perform a piece from NovoMusic. Having never heard any of my music performed live before or even been part of a music ensemble, I found the interaction with musicians eye-opening and experience itself life-changing.