Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and Igor Stravinsky, as well as more modern composers such as Mark Isham, Ray Lynch, and Hans Zimmer.
I started out very young as a music lover, picking out harmonies to music playing on my parents’ radio at 5 years of age. I became interested in piano by listening in on my sister’s piano lessons, often repeating the lessons by ear after my sister finished at the piano. I was greatly influenced by music in the churches I attended throughout my childhood, learning music theory beginning in children’s choir.
Even early on, I was fascinated by movie music. I remember my big "epiphany" clearly: one specific note in the opening music of Chariots of Fire. My parents took my brother, sisters, and me to see it in the theatre. If you’ve seen the opening scenes of the movie, you know the note I mean. It was at that very moment I realized the power of music, its ability to draw out emotion, and to help tell stories- or to tell their own stories. It was at that point that I decided I wanted to write music.
In 7th grade I received an electronic keyboard as a gift, and I began writing short tunes, passages, eventually gathering the courage to dive into writing a full song. It spilled out magically, and I recorded it in my room on a portable tape recorder.
In high school I took up percussion, and I became fascinated with how deceptively simple drums were to play, yet how a musician could spend his or her life learning to play more perfectly. Many of my compositions reflect my love for percussion and rhythm. During high school I also began to develop a deeper appreciation of purely classical music (as opposed to scores written just for movies.
