In a recent video by violin collaborator and avid stormchaser Andrew Messersmith (courtesy of colleague Matt Ammon), eerie sirens echo off the prairie as a supercell spawns an immaculate tornado. Instantly inspired, I asked for the audio and incorporated it into an enigmatic electronic work on the subject of cyclogenesis, the first step in the development of tornadoes. In this process, atmospheric circulation begins and forms a low-pressure area, making for some spectacular albeit foreboding clouds.

For my Easter 2026 postlude, I wrote a sizzling organ arrangement of the hymn "Christ Jesus Lay in Death's Strong Bands." As I prepared the piece for performance though, I got the sense, as I have before with other works, that I had more to say than the original instrumentation was letting on. But while other projects have felt like they're heading in an orchestral direction, this one transformed into electronic music. All the original flourishes of the organ arrangement are here embedded in synths and supported by percussion reminiscient of the drum and bass genre.

Entropy is the natural and inevitable decline of all things from a state of order to a state of disorder. Negentropy is its opposite, a process of spontaneity to intentionality. In other words, negentropy is a creative force seldom found in a universe defined by destruction and decay. Taken by this idea, I set out to write a piece that begins in ambiguity and grows into focus, a piece that lacks direction at the start but finds it by the end. The result is this dark and dissonant fixed media work whose initial atonal ambiences evolve into a ferocious rhythmic motive by its climax.

This vaguely acoustic piece was inspired by a trip to Oklahoma's Arcadia Lake on a warm but windy December afternoon. I set an extremely slowed down version of "A Half Made Whole" from Cinematic Scenes to woodwind sextet, processed the performance through heavy reverb, then splashed woodwind breath sounds on top to mimic the lovely experience.

Really listening to any environment always reveals the never-ending sounds of motion. Nature provides by far some of the most diverse sounds out there, from the rustling of wind through trees to the chirping and scurrying of insects. In this brief study, the music of the outdoors was imitated by processing a few clips from a drum set / double bass recording session.

The massive 'braaam' sound that plays at the end of the trailer for the film 'Inception' inspired countless composers of trailers, video games, and films to utilize low brass and large percussion for large swaths of their music. With the exception of piano, this work is built solely on the 5-second clip to demonstrate a range of processing techniques.