Shining Through - the CD

As the pictures (will) show, music has been the center of my life since I came into the world. I'm pretty sure that it was handed down in my genes. Both my grandfathers are musicians—a church organist and a tenor sax player for a jazz band—and my parents met while getting music degrees in college.

My music career started when I was about four, when my little brother, Matt, and I had a band called the Wanahkanifida Kids. (Better check the spelling on that.) Our concerts were held on top of our rabbit coop outside, and we wore Chap-Stick all over our faces to imitate the intricately made-up faces of our idols in KISS. Our biggest favourites, however, were the Beatles: Matt was Paul, and I was John.

Through high school, Dad and Mom taught me piano, composition, and theory, while I taught myself on the guitar. From there, it was on to music school in Rochester and a Ph.D. in Chapel Hill. Who would have thought, a doctor of music?

I am currently an assistant professor of musicology at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts—teaching, writing, and writing about what I love.

   

 

I started writing songs in the summer of 2000:  the first song was an outlet for a really frustrating ballet rehearsal I'd had that morning.  Although I ended up scrapping that song, the one I wrote the next day, "Just Beyond Our Reach," turned out pretty well.  Writing songs came really naturally for me.  Since piano had always been my main instrument through school, playing the guitar was the bigger challenge.  Singing and playing guitar seemed impossible...

Until I stopped thinking about things and just did it.  At that point, the whole coordination thing simply fell into place.  It was my goal to write enough songs—songs that I was happy with—to fill a three-hour set, and then I would start playing gigs.  All originals; no covers.  After a lot of writing and a lot of practicing, I played my first gig at a coffeeshop in Chapel Hill in February 2003.

I've played heaps of gigs in the years since then—bars, coffeeshops, parties, weddings—and have never strayed from my creed to only perform originals.  ...Well, except for one night when John and I attempted to play "Livin' on a Prayer" off the cuff for a drunk frat boy in Chapel Hill who wanted to pretend he was Bon Jovi.   But I don't think that counts.

 

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