I teach composing for guitar and traditional classical guitar lessons through Skype and Zoom, and I’m a member of the Seattle Classic Guitar Society and the Classical Guitar Society of the Tri-Cities (Richland, Pasco, and Kennewick, Washington). Additionally, I teach full time for a school district in the greater Seattle area.

I recently spent five years in the Spokane area, where I taught general music, beginning band, band, and guitar to students in preschool through twelfth grade in a small school district in Lincoln County, and I took classes toward Washington State teacher certification at Eastern Washington University in Cheney. 

Before moving to the Spokane area, I was a full-time guitar teacher and professional guitarist in Seattle, Washington. I taught classical guitar to children using the Suzuki approach, and to adults using traditional classical guitar methods. I performed in numerous cafes, community music schools, churches, and retirement homes in Seattle. On several occasions, I performed at prestigious Seattle venues such as Brecheman Auditorium at the University of Washington, the Nordstrom Recital Hall at Benaroya Hall, and at the Intiman Theater at Seattle Center. As an active member of the Seattle Classic Guitar Society, my primary role was to organize the annual Holiday Concert. During this time, I also enjoyed performing in Skagit County, which is about an hour north of Seattle. I performed original compositions at the Museum of Northwest Art in La Conner, and at Gallery Dei Gratia in Mount Vernon.

Previous to living and working in Seattle, I taught guitar lessons in several private school in Baltimore, Maryland, and was an active member of the Baltimore Classical Guitar Society. I moved to Baltimore to attend the Peabody Conservatory, where I earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in classical guitar.

I grew up in northwest New Jersey, and that is where I began both playing and teaching guitar. I began playing guitar when I was in elementary school, starting with basic beginning guitar and songs in popular and rock styles. I was introduced to classical guitar in my middle school years, and I have been playing since then, and I began teaching guitar lessons in a studio in a local music store when I was in high school, and I have been teaching guitar since then.

My guitar teachers include Robert Pomicter, Jr., Michael Newman, Nathaniel Gunod, Ray Chester, Aaron Shearer, Julian Gray, Manuel Barrueco, Michael Partington, Kevin Callahan, and Dennis Koster. I have also attended more workshops, clinics, lectures, and master classes (as a performer and auditor) than I could mention.

My composition teachers include Stanley Schumacher, Bruno Amato, Janice Gitek, Jarred Powell, Ken Benshoof, Tom Baker, Kevin Callahan, Jonathan Middleton, and Don Goodwin. The duration of study with each teacher lasted from as short as one lesson to as long as a year, most often somewhere in between the two extremes.

Lou Harrison had a very inspiring place in my development as a composer. I had three phone conversations with him when I was writing a paper about his guitar music. Additionally, he hosted me at his house in Aptos, California for two days. At his house,  I played some of my guitar compositions for him, and he gave me some feedback. Above all, I was inspired by the melodic writing in his music for gamelan, and I was privileged to hear a live gamelan rehearsal at his house. Lou said to me as I was tuning that guitar is “naturally a harmonic instrument.” This had a impact on how I would develop my approach to writing music for guitar. 

I also had two music theory teachers who were also composers who a lot about composition in their theory classes: Thomas Benjamin and Morris Cotel. I enjoyed their comments about composition as much as I learned from their insight into music theory and repertoire.