June 2026 News
In May, I traveled to Kansas City, MO to work with Te Deum and their director Matthew Christopher Shepard in rehearsals of two new choral works of mine. Chorus Angelorum is the second work I've written for them as their Composer-in-Residence and my first work for a double choir. As this was composed for their "Remembrance and Comfort" concerts around Memorial Day, I was inspired by the imagery from the "In Paradisum" funeral rites text (famously set by Faure and Durufle at the end of their Requiems) of the "Choir of Angels" welcoming the departed souls into heaven. I set out to create the most angelic music I could, using the two choirs to create overlapping swells of chords:
And in case you missed it, I documented the process of composing “Chorus Angelorum” in a series of videos you can watch if you'd like to learn how I composed it and all the thoughts and decisions I made along the way:
On the same concert, Te Deum also premiered my De Profundis, a work for 8-part choir that I composed in 2020 during the early months of the pandemic. This work mostly repeats the same simple 4-measure harmonic progression but always changes the details of voicings, combinations of consonant and vowel sounds, rhythms, and dynamics. In some ways, it's a bit like Arvo Part's music, but then twice it breaks out from this into expansive 9-part counterpoint:
In January, I traveled to Tallahassee, FL to hear my doctoral dissertation composition Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Beloved Community? a Concertino for Orchestral Winds premiered by the Florida State University Wind Orchestra as part of their New Music Festival. This is a very special work to me—the title is borrowed from the title of the final book written by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., although I added the word "Beloved" as the composition is a musical depiction of King's vision of the Beloved Community—the ideal world we should be striving to live in. I do this by splitting the ensemble into 8 different groups that all play different styles of music, first conflicting and clashing with each other, but eventually learning how to play together to create a more beautiful whole while still maintaining their unique identities. And it is not an easy piece—it gives every instrument and performer a chance to shine and show their abilities! The FSU Wind Orchestra and their conductor Rodney Dorsey did a tremendous job of bringing this challenging work to life for the first time:
As many of you know, for the past two years I've been commissioned by the world-renowned violinist Midori to create a series of new arrangements for her, most recently an arrangement of Bartok's Romanian Folk Dances for Violin and beginning-level Orchestra for her to perform with youth orchestras as part of her Orchestra Residencies Program. In March, I was fortunate to be able to hear her perform it in Worcester, MA (not far at all from where I grew up) with the Joy of Music String Ensemble. It was also my first time getting to meet her in person (see the picture above). I'm still pitching myself that I get to create music for such an extraordinary performer, musician, and person!
With Midori after a performance of my arrangement of Bartok's Romanian Folk Dances
I'm excited to share that I'll be an Artist-in-Residence this fall at the University of Richmond's Department of Music! I'll be traveling to Virginia in November and December to work with the wind ensemble and orchestra on performances of some of my works as well as teaching and coaching individual students.
Last month, I received a grant from the Town Arts Fund in my hometown of Brattleboro, Vermont, to be able to compose a new work for the bands at the three Brattleboro elementary schools. The work is going to be about Brattleboro, taking inspiration from students' suggestions about what they love about our town, and then I'll get to work with them in rehearsal next school year and conduct them myself in concerts next May!
Many of you know that I've been teaching composition online for the past several years, and earlier this year I launched my Keane Composition Academy. This summer, I've also started teaching composition in person as an Adjunct Professor of Music Composition at Keene State College (yes, I know it's very fitting!). I'm teaching one student this summer, but this fall it will expand to teaching an intro composition course as well as individual applied lessons for several students.