Beneath the Ink was nominated for Outstanding Short Documentary in the 2019 News and Documentary Emmy Awards. I co-composed the score with Stephen Letnes, and it's been a wild ride seeing where Cy Dodson's film has gone and all the awards it's been getting.
I entered my board game Four Humours in the Cardboard Edison Award, and placed 3rd out of 213 submissions!
The STARZ network has picked up Silicone Soul, Melody Gilbert's documentary I scored last year. The film follows people who've fallen in love, and even married, their life-sized silicone dolls.
Love Them First: Lessons From Lucy Laney Elementary, the Kare 11 documentary I scored, had a great run at the Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Film Fest. It won Best Minnesota Made Documentary and sold out more screenings than any film in the festival's history.
I attend a monthly documentary club in the Twin Cities, where directors screen their works-in-progress. When Kyle Whitney shared his footage of interviews with nuclear bomb survivors in Japan, my jaw dropped at these stories he captured.
I've been working on my digital painting skills over the last few weeks, trying to make something as photorealistic as possible. I was inspired by two reference photos, one from a friend of her cat, Remus, and one from my old dog, Dylan.
I just finished a retro video game score for Demon's Hymn 2: Prelude of Night. Will Tice of unTied Games decided to take on the LOWREZJAM challenge again this year and make this 64x64 pixel sequel to the original Demon's Hymn. It's an incredibly ambitious game for just 2 weeks of work. For my soundtrack, I started with the same sound palette of church organ and ghostly synths as the first game, and I introduced more orchestral (but bitcrushed) instruments like French horn and alto flute.
Two films I scored will be airing on Twin Cities Public Television in September as part of their MNTV lineup: "This is Home" by Jason P. Schumacher and "Beneath the Ink" by Cy Dodson (I co-scored this with Stephen Letnes).
I just received some very exciting news. I wrote an orchestral piece for the Banaue International Music Composition Competition, and I found out I'm a semi-finalist! As one of the 20 composer-fellows chosen from around the world, I get to travel to the Philippines for a composer immersion program in July. My piece, Balitúk: the Divided Child, will be rehearsed with a full orchestra and traditional Ifugao instruments from that region.
I recently scored an intriguing documentary by prolific director Melody Gilbert, called Silicone Soul. It features people (mostly men) who develop relationships with their life-size silicone dolls. It's one that will likely make you uncomfortable at first, but by the end you may have more empathy for the subjects than you might expect.