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from Shakespeare's Measure for Measure
I think this was the first time I'd ever put something to music. I composed this right before the England Abroad when I was in France in the attic of my grandfather's house around August 2006, with the intention that it might be played during the Measure for Measure production that quarter.
I had JUST started learning guitar, so I barely knew chords, and had trouble getting from chord to chord.
Seth Bleecker was the original voice in the song.
Here is a video of him singing the piece in Measure for Measure rehearsal.
(and yes, it's sideways. apparently, youtube flips them. And I spent so long downloading a program to flip it on my computer, too!)
Take Oh Take these lips away
That so sweetly were forscorned
And those eyes, the break of Day
Lights that do mislead the morn
But these kisses bring again
Seals of love, but sealed in vain
Here is me singing the full piece, maybe a year or so later?
Musician, Composer and Artist
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A History
Ok, so I'm a musician.
I've been playing piano since I was five. I was trained classically, and got a BA in music. In 5th and 6th grade, I played clarinet. In college, I started teaching myself guitar and bass. I took voice lessons and sang in choir off and on. I took a year of carillon lessons with this amazing guy from the Netherlands. I started playing percussion in the orchestra in college. (My first time on percussion was the "West Side Story" - what a way to start!) In grad school, I picked up accordion, (which I have brought to Buenos Aires with me). In Bolivia, I got a charrango, and a in April 2011, I bought a bright purple violin. I have harmonicas, and I'm a grand master of the Kazoo and slide whistle.
I didn't start composing until college, when I composed one completely original song; it felt like a fluke accident.
So towards the very end of college, I felt my piano skills were limited to playing what other people had written, so I began teaching myself jazz piano and improvisation. My uncle then got me a keyboard as my graduation present. The year after college, I went to Dell'Arte International School of Physical Theater in Blue Lake, CA, and around Christmas time (2009), I was volunteering at the community breakfast, and as they were overstaffed, I mustered up the courage to volunteer to improvise on the piano. They asked, "Do you play Christmas songs?" I certainly didn't. "I can give it a shot," I replied. That day, a local Presby church asked me if I'd like a job playing for their Sunday services. (I ended up being the only one in my class who had a job. $25 a week!)
At Dell'Arte, my confidence growing, I composed some music from a nifty Hamlet production we put together. Later, I did the music for my group's Melodrama production, with help from Walken Schwigert on the violin. One of the only times I ever got praise unadulterated from my professor, Ronlin Forman, was about the piece of music, which fit the production like a glove.
In Argentina, I joined a band (The Garden Abides), and started composing more seriously.
Then, when I came back home in Winter of 2010, I was in a production of ATFC's Alice in Wonderland, and offered to write the music for the show.
I also volunteered to write the music for my friend Elizabeth Swensen's Master's Thesis project, called "The Witch".
I just composed the underscoring for another ATFC production of "Rapunzel," and recently finished recording the piano score for Alan Menkin's "Christmas Carol" for a local theater group. I also did some of the voices... just for fun!
So that's what I can remember.
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