Bio
I am a saxophonist, composer/arranger, and educator based in Southern Maine. Music has been a central part of my life since my early years growing up in a musical family in Western Massachusetts. It has been a source of joy and connection to my body, nature, and community, and an essential mode of communication. I have experienced the power of music to bring people together, build inclusion and community, and facilitate self-expression. These experiences have shaped the values that I’ve held in my creative practice and professional work as a musician over the past twenty years, values that I enact through my musical choices as a performer and composer, who I collaborate with and where I play, how I perform, and the teaching philosophy that shapes my work at Bowdoin College and the Portland Conservatory of Music.
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Debut Album & Press
In 2025, I released my first album of original work - Give Way - with trumpeter/composer Emily Mikesell. Give Way is a six-track album of lush soundscapes that Emily and I co-composed by sending improvised tracks back and forth via email. We set a few parameters for our work together and used Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies as creative prompts - a process that we have detailed in numerous interviews and that Emily has written about on Substack. After recording the album, we spent several years mixing it and finally released it on ears&eyes Records, with the support of wisdom from Brian Seeger, Randy Crafton, and Ray Dillard and funding from the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation. What started as a Covid experiment in remote collaboration when Emily and I were in grad school at the University of New Orleans became a genre-defying musical statement on trust and embodiment in creative collaboration. Give Way has been warmly received with a Grammy® nod, a feature on Bandcamp’s New & Notables (resulting in over 13,000 listens), interviews on The Jazz Session and 15 Questions, and numerous positive reviews, including in Downbeat Magazine, MOJO, and Antigravity. You can read and hear more about Give Way here. The album is available for purchase on Bandcamp and can be heard on all major streaming platforms. |
Photo by Nithun Selva
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Recordings, Commissions, and Awarded Residencies
My creative work over the past several years has been profoundly impacted by my experiences at several artist residencies.
My creative work over the past several years has been profoundly impacted by my experiences at several artist residencies.
- In 2024, I was a fellow at a cultural exchange called OneBeat. Sponsored by the US Department of State and produced by Found Sound Nation, OneBeat was a highly competitive program that brought 25 musicians together from 19 countries around the world for a collaborative residency at Avaloch Farm Music Institute. We composed new work together and then traveled on a regional tour, performing and teaching workshops. Some of our work was recorded and released on the OneBeat Mixtape and on video of our live performances. The relationships we formed and music we created continues to have a profound impact on how I understand myself and my work.
- In 2025, I was a Fellow at Campbient, a sound art residency near Seattle, WA. The 24 Campbient residents included sound artists, field recordists, and musicians. We stayed in Manchester State Park, where we co-wrote and produced a sound art album, Campbient VI, which was released in 2026.
- Later in 2025, I had the incredible privilege of a solo residency at Ucross in Wyoming, where I continued exploring field recording and incorporating new sounds and perspectives into my upcoming album, In This Body.
Other recent career highlights include:
- Playing as a guest artist on Anthems for Lily Briscoe (2025), the debut album of my dear friend, Bess Jacques. In addition to playing saxophone on “Hotel Land,” I also served as a production consultant to Bess.
- Playing tenor and bari saxophone on New Orleans collaborator Anna Laura Quinn’s Open the Door (Outside In Music 2022). I also mixed two of the tracks on this album (“Very Good Advice” and “The Single Petal of a Rose”).
- Writing commissioned arrangements for “Sacred Spaces,” a collaborative ballet between the Grammy® award winning New Orleans Jazz Orchestra and Cleo Parker Robinson Dance.
- Writing the arrangement for “The Land of Beginning Again,” recorded on the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra’s 2021 album with Cyrille Aimée - Petite Fleur (Storyville Records).
- Writing commissioned arrangements for New Orleans Jazz Orchestra performances with John Boutté, Irma Thomas, Renee Neufville, Miki Howard, Nnenna Freelon, and Gabi Cavassa.
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Performances
In addition to these special projects, I perform regularly in Maine and New Orleans in a wide variety of ongoing projects and one-off gigs:
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Photo by Cassandra Klos
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Education
My work as an educator has supported my creative work for over a decade and is integral to my career. Formative learning experiences that helped shape my perspective on music and music education include:
My work as an educator has supported my creative work for over a decade and is integral to my career. Formative learning experiences that helped shape my perspective on music and music education include:
- University of New Orleans - Master of Music in Jazz Studies ‘22
- Pomona College - BA in American Studies ‘11
- Excellent public schooling in the Amherst, MA area and numerous informal mentorships over the years
- International Symposium on Electronic/Emerging Art (Seoul, 2025)
- University of Malta’s Conference of the School of Performing Arts (Valletta, 2025)
- Conference for the International Network for Artistic Research in Jazz (Vienna, 2024)