Album Release: Radiant Obscurity Collective

After spending much of the summer of 2017 writing music and touring with a contemporary sacred music ensemble, the Radiant Obscurity Collective, we set about recording our first album. It was a process that took a lot more time than we thought, and many recording sessions at some pretty cool places around Boston — Studio 1867 (an old Masonic temple), an abandoned church, the Record Company, and the Cloud Club.

It took nearly a year to record and release (special shout-out to our engineers, Nate Patsfall and Brad Robertson, for their hard work and commitment to the project), but it’s now available through Bandcamp, and we’re really happy with the result. Please check it out!

New Premiere at Georgetown

I’m excited to announce that a new piece of mine, Le Tombeau Enceint will be premiered at a concert at 8pm this Saturday, September 15, at Georgetown University, as part of the New Music DC conference. Le Tombeau Enceint will feature Natalie Groom (clarinet), Kevin Mott (percussion), and Nathaniel Hoyt (cello). Tickets can be purchased here. I would also like to extend a hearty congratulations to Conner McCain and Tobias Russell, two of my fellow composition students at the Catholic University of America, who will also be premiering new works at the conference.

New Music DC is the inaugural conference sponsored by the District New Music Coalition, which promotes the performance and appreciation of contemporary music by connecting performers, institutions, and audiences within the Washington, DC, metropolitan area. If you live in the area, be sure to check out the conference for a lot of interesting music, professional development, and networking opportunities! If you’d like to check out a program of the conference, it can be found here.

If you’re around the conference on Saturday, make sure to stop by and say hello!

Radiant Obscurity and Boston adventures

The Radiant Obscurity Collective regrouped on May 7-11 to continue work on our upcoming record...which we hope to release in August for the 1 year anniversary of our debut tour.  With our normal bass player, Asa Spring, teaching English in Korea, we welcomed Josiah Contreras (a.k.a. Red Elk) who played bass on one new track.  The recording went smoothly and we have the album nearly ready for mixing, thanks especially to the hard work of our fantastic engineer, Bradley Robertson and the hospitality of the Cloud Club and our friend, Bailey Hein of Neck.

On Friday, Natalia Guerrero, the host of "Voice Box" on WMBR-88.1 FM (Cambridge, MA) invited me to join her to talk about Radiant Obscurity's new record and preview some of the tracks from our upcoming record.  We also played a recording from the debut of a "Regina Caeli," written by a DC friend, Ben Yuly.  Ben is a really talented composer who had an exciting spring, with premieres of this "Regina Caeli" and also "Rekindled," commissioned and premiered by the CUA Wind Ensemble.  Congratulations, Ben!  It was a lot of fun to be back in the WMBR studios; thanks Natalia for being interested in our music!

My dear friend, Eli Roberts, also deserves a shout out...not just for his work on the Radiant Obscurity record, but also for letting me crash with him for a week AND for helping to set up a reading session for a new piece of chamber music ("Le Tombeau Enceinte: A Meditation on Holy Saturday") that I completed this spring.  If you don't know Eli's music, you should totally check it out!