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This gallery contains all photos related to music, including
People & Premieres Photos which Inspired Pieces Musical Memories
Click a photo to see a large size - some files are scans of older photos, I apologize for quality issues!
People & Premieres
 with the Ariel String Quartet after their premiere of Ephemeral Echoes, May 06 (Boston - NEC) |
 taking a bow after the premiere of Of Seas and Self with the Nashua Symphony, March 07 (NH) |
 with Music Director Roy Gussman and his wife and violinist Katherine, after guest-conducting the Monmouth Symphony in the premiere of Protean Dances. May 07 (NJ) |
 backstage at the Brevard Music Center with solo percussionist Andrew Sickmeier after conducting the premiere of Visions for Vibraphone and Chamber Orchestra on the moonlight concert. August 07 (NC) |
 with renowned Russian trumpet pedagogue Anatoly Dmitrivich Selianin, December 04 (New Jersey - MSU) |
 with my conducting teacher Leonid Nikolaev (to my left), his assistant Yuri and pianists Anatoly and Andrei (l-r), June 04 (Moscow Consv.) |
 with composer Willem Dragstra at the BMV premiere of Spezzai Stromenti, when I was production manager. I believe that's homemade apple cider he's drinking. Yum. April 06 (Boston - BU) |
 Fred Mills visited Moscow Conservatory for a masterclass and I ran into him randomly in the halls, and helped with some translation. Pictured also are Leonid Chumov, director of the brass faculty and and Andrei Ikov, trumpet with Russian National Orch. March 05 (Moscow Consv.) |
 I lived for a year at an address in Boston which was synonymous with impromptu concerts and cultural soirees. In Spring 07, The Pierre Hurel Trio recorded a CD there, and I was snapping photos (MA) |
 with tenor Sean Mulcahy after my Senior Composition Concert at Montclair University, March 05 (NJ) |
 With the other participants of the Norwalk Symphony's Beyond the Baton Seminar, May 08. (CT) |
 With the other participants of the Internationale Sommerakademie in Admont, Austria, July 08. |
Photos & Musical Inspiration
 Dawn over Richmond, CA as seen from my Aunt & Uncle's home in Tiburon. Watching this sunrise, from complete darkness to when the sun peaked over the hills, gave me the idea for a piece exploring the event of sunrise through correlations between frequencies of light and those of sound. August 07 |
 #1: Welcoming (Valley Road in Early Morning) These are the photos which inspired the six movements of Autumn Trees (V48). All 6 were taken chronologically over the course of one day at the campus of Montclair University. Little known fact: a working title for the suite was Trees of Montclair State University, but I figured the Respighi's estate would sue. October 02 (MSU) |
 #2:
Innocence (Dickson Hall in Late Morning)
Once I saw this little sapling, I decided to spend the day taking photos of trees around campus. Ironically, a few years
later this little tree, inspiring the naïve second movement
'Innocence' was uprooted for, of all things, a smoking kiosk. Go figure.
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 #3: Yearning (Music Building at Noon)
Though it was nearly impossible to capture, this tree had one branch reaching out, interestingly enough in the direction of the music building. |
 #4: Comfort (Webster Hall in Late Afternoon) These trees seemed to surround and protect the dormitory Webster Hall, which was, inronically where my girlfriend lived at the time. Looking back, there is a lot of irony in this piece's compositional journey. |
 #5: The Evergreen (College Hall at Midnight) By this time, the desire to find images which would allow a coherent musical structure led me not only to stay up all night but to stay outside in a terrible thunderstorm. My efforts were rewarded though, and if the visual quality of this dark shot is lacking, my memory of standing near the tree when it was hit by lightning is surprisingly still pretty sharp. |
 #6: Triumph (The View from Freeman Hall at Sunrise) It seemed only appropriate that the suite should end back at my own dormitory. The storm had passed and the trees, as in the first photo, populate the land. Here, what was the colorful pageant of the leaves in photo #1 is reflect in the grandeur of a sky painted by the Sun, welcoming a new day. |
 Brahms 4 with a nice cabernet. |
Musical Memories
 Koussevitsky's Opening Speech from the first year of the Berkshire Music Festival, later Tanglewood, hangs unassumingly in one of the offices. It is as true today as it was then. |
 So, the first time I visited Moscow we went on a partially chaperoned tour of the Bolshoi Theatre. A few of us 'got lost' and came upon their rehearsal stage, complete with a half-stocked pit. We decided it was only appropriate to put on a performance of Swan Lake. May 02 |
 But we weren't always causing trouble, and we cleaned up pretty well for a joint concert with the Russian Army Conductor's Academy in the big hall of the Moscow Conservatory. I'm directly under the center trumpeter on the stage left side. May 02 |
 In 2004 I returned to Russia to study at the Conservatory in Moscow. Here I'm photographed with the poster advertising the concert which saw the world premier of Lyric Pieces (V66) and the Russian premiere of Sonata583 (V53) May 04 (yes I'm wearing a winter coat in May) |
 Before our final performance, in St. Petersburg, in the hall where (we were told) Shostakovich's 5th was premiered. By this time I had assimilated the Russian 'look'. May 02 |
 After the aforementioned concert, with other visiting American students Tricia Galvez, Carolyn Dachinger (dedicatee of Sonata583), Stephen Wu and Elona Muca, and Russian harpist Simyon Kulkov. Rachmanninov Hall, Moscow Consv June 04 |
 During my first trip to Russia, we trumpeters got the royal treatment in Saratov where our contact was the renowned trumpet teacher Anatoly Dmitrivich Selianin. Here we are with the Saratov Conservatory trumpet section. Can you spot the Americans? May 02 |
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