2018 Year In Review

Happy New Year everyone!

A new year has begun, and as much as I love looking forward, I wanted to take some time to reflect on 2018. It's funny how quickly a year can go. In the midst of it, it sometimes feels like you're moving nowhere fast. Even though you know you're doing the work, it feels like nothing is moving forward. But when you take the time to look back, you might be surprised by how much you actually have accomplished.

The year started with two short films I worked on the previous year premiering at a few notable film festivals around the US, the Beverly Hills Film Fest and the Atlanta Film Festival. This was a huge accomplishment for the cast, crew, and myself. When you work on a truly independent production, you're never quite sure what will happen at the end of it. It was nice to see these two films get their time on the silver screen in front of an audience. 

The beginning of 2018 also saw The Kepler Mission back in action and hitting the stage. We had the pleasure of opening for Alien Ant Farm at the Whiskey A Go Go, and it was one of the best shows I think we have ever played. The venue was packed, and the crowd seemed to really be receptive of us. We also hit the Troubadour later in the year, and though the crowd we played to was a little more intimate than the Whiskey, it was still a fun show.

Summer of 2018 was an extremely busy and fulfilling time of the year for me. The last week of July, I spent three days in SESAC's first composer workshop hosted by Christophe Beck and Chris Bacon. This was an eye opener for me. I spent time side by side with my peers, being critiqued by true professionals, and realized how much I yearned to learn and missed being in a formal class setting. My classmates were all graduates of Berklee or USC's graduate program. I hadn't every really thought of returning to school, but after the workshop, I decided that it would probably be one of the best investments I could make in myself and my career.

After that eye opening week and decision, I wasn't sure how much better my summer could get. To my surprise, it got exponentially better about two weeks after the workshop. I ended up taking a five day backpacking/climbing trip to Tuolumne Meadows Yosemite with my friend Gary. The trip was definitely a life changer. We hiked in with a wilderness permit, set up camp near a lake at the base of Cathedral Peak, and started planning our climbs. The first climb was Cathedral Peak, a classic 5.6/7 route established by John Muir. It was my first time trad climbing, and my first multi-pitch climb. I was scared shitless, but I made it to the summit and back down alive. Our second climb was one I was hesitant to do, but I fought through my doubts and decided to climb it, for my sake and for Gary's (he'd been wanting to do this climb for a few years). It was Matthes Crest, a knife blade sticking out of Tuolumne Valley. The climb and traverse took all day. By the time we repelled, the sun was setting (which was breath taking). We ended up having to down climb in the dark, which was not as horrifying as I thought it would be. Maybe it was the exhaustion/dehydration setting in, or maybe just the fact that you can only see two feet in front of you so your brain blocks out the horrors beyond its line of sight...either way, we got back to camp alive and grateful to drink water and lie down. The climb started at 4am and ended at 11pm...quite the day! The next morning I headed back to L.A., and back to the grind of my day job.

The rest of the year was a blur of writing, some performing, and putting together my application for school. I started on a new solo track, submitted to a few new scoring competitions, volunteered for another SESAC event with Richard Kraft, had a few tracks released by Velvet Green Music, and kept climbing as much as I could. The year ended without any real extravagance or excitement, but I felt that it was a year well spent with another few inches gained on my path to becoming a full time composer.

"The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning."