As I was updating my site after the premiere of Kecow hit tamen, I realized that my last several works had strong visuals attached to them, whether it was intended that way from the beginning or not. Ryan Day’s art for Kecow captures the static, yet continuously transforming landscape of that piece precisely. Gary Shipman’s beautiful poster for Dust really ignited my imagination, and to be honest, I think influenced my composition of the extremely stark, minimal “Her Skin” song from that cycle. The experience of seeing real singers acting out Final Battle on a real stage continues to buoy me in my efforts to secure a full production of the opera. And what is there to say about Will Zavala’s  eloquent documentary on Virgil Cantini, or KnotDance’s choreography for Trouble? So I decided that rather than go for a single, abstract banner that somehow says, “I am composer! Hear me roar! Then hear me subject that roar to an array of increasingly obscure permutations!” I would populate the banner space with some of the images that have been such an integral part of my work over the years. Hopefully my affinity for the visual image and the spoken word will continue to open up more creative avenues in the years to come.

It also occurred to me that I should take a shot at more regularly blogging my activities. There’s something nice about sticking your mug up on a Web page with a reasonably up-to-date bio and forgetting about it. But I’m increasingly aware that I am better at reporting on everyone else’s activities than I am at reporting on my own. So I’m going to try posting more regularly in this space (which sounds very much like a new years resolution). Who knows? Maybe I will have more to say than I realized. And if you like it, feel free to let me know.