I was born on May 27, 1986 in Manhattan. One of my most distant memories is of the World Trade Center in the late 1980s. My childhood years were prolific, and I made many drawings of inventions, architecture, transportation, communications, and visual art. My parents made a living selling flowers and butterflies in my early life, and I grew up in Columbus, Ohio with two of my three brothers.
I began learning piano in elementary school and wrote a few small pieces of music. During a mathematics class when I was eleven years old I was introduced to electronic music. The class exposed me to probability, and in a sense, indeterminacy and change, and to various geometric forms, and opened my mind to ideas that could be applied to my music and art. The class made a lasting impression on me, and I continued making music and art. I continued learning other instruments through middle school but settled on primarily piano.
I made an album of experimental jazz remixes when I was sixteen, and began playing all kinds of music in bands during high school. My composition teacher introduced me to important works of the 20th century, as well as performance art, and taught me how to notate music in unconventional ways. I finished high school early and participated in a program where I interned at a studio in New York City in a central area for pop art and music. I ended up playing on a few recordings. I was awarded a scholarship at Berklee for my performance of the “Revolutionary Etude” by Chopin, and my compositions.
I continued studying with JoAnne Brackeen and saw performances by Milton Babbitt, and participated in a Meredith Monk seminar. I was photographed by the controversial Terry Richardson my freshmen year. Some of the first works of mine were a new media performance and visual art project presented as an abstract communications art piece with 16 colored squares that made tones, and a button to return to the top level.
I now crate music and art from a diverse array of influences from both high and low culture including pop, cyber space, minimalism, free jazz, underground rock, classicism, historical movements and especially from different countries. Music is about how one's own soul resonates in this world. It is the means to connect with the sky, and the boundless peace that connects us all. The message is always simple, wars must be a thing of the past, and there is no need for hunger. Nobody’s body or soul should be owned. My parent’s generation could only imagine, but mine is meant to act, and in order to do so we must be more forthright.