I am a multi-instrumentalist, composer, songwriter, producer, and artist whose work moves fluidly between genres to make a hybrid of popular and experimental music. My practice centers on the elasticity of pop music and songwriting—how pop’s core components can be expanded, disrupted, or reimagined into forms that are emotionally immediate yet structurally and sonically exploratory. I work between analog and digital mediums and am especially compelled by genre fusion, distortion and noise-based textures, and the pursuit of sounds and structures that feel genuinely new. I became acquainted with experimental music—and all the different shapes music can hold—while attending undergrad at UVA. I was lucky enough to have Professor Burtner and Professor Coffey as guides in lessons that still chase me fifteen years later: experiences that gave me the conceptual and theoretical groundings for the work I make today, and sparks of curiosity that eventually grew into fires. Much of that curiosity has since grown through independent experimentation, intensive writing, and years of self-taught production.

Music has been the throughline of my life, even during the years when I tried to run from it. I grew up in a musically encouraging household but never had the discipline to learn my instruments in traditional ways. Instead, I was drawn to the idea of writing my own versions of the sounds I loved. That impulse led me to forming bands throughout high school and college, experimenting with punk and indie rock. As adulthood made collaboration more difficult, I turned toward self-produced electronic music, teaching myself Ableton Live, remixing, producing, and eventually DJing several nights a week while working full time. The pace burned me out, and I walked away from music almost entirely, spending years floating between other creative practices—wood carving, video game journalism, and toy-making—but never finding anything that filled the void music left behind.

In 2022, after a divorce that destabilized my life, I returned to music. I downloaded Ableton again and wrote Hungry Ghost, my first original track in years. This act of creation opened the floodgates, and I began writing constantly, finding joy in writing for a new audience: myself. I was no longer creating for external outcomes, but motivated by curiosity and the need to uncover whatever new songs my brain would cook up. Since 2022, I have written, produced, mixed, and mastered seven albums and five EPs. I adopted a DIY approach because it let me work at the speed of my ideas, finishing pieces in a day or two and learning to trust my instincts. As my writing grew, I pushed harder—breaking song structures, writing pieces that start in one place and end somewhere unexpected, experimenting with analog synths and outboard gear, and doing whatever I could to chase the idea of making something that sounded like nothing I’d heard before.

This period also revealed the limits of my self-taught background. I wanted to create more complex work but felt constrained by gaps in theory, intermediate instrumental skills, and the absence of mentorship. I found myself wanting to understand how the pieces I enjoyed were constructed, and I deeply missed community, conversation, and shared exploration among likeminded peers.

In January of last year, I revisited UVA’s Music Department website and discovered the Composition and Computer Technologies PhD program. Its combination of composition, technology, and interdisciplinary experimentation aligned instantly with the questions I was running into, and the possibility of funded graduate study opened what had previously felt like an impossible path. Although I had missed the deadline, the idea of returning to UVA has stayed with me since, and that clarity has only grown.