Some pieces take weeks to write. Others take months. Flight took more than a decade, and along the way, it became something far more personal than I ever imagined.
Flight holds a very special place in my heart.
In the fall of 2012, my grandfather (Papa), one of the few musicians of his generation in our family, passed away after a long battle with cancer.
Around that time, I had just completed and premiered The Escape, a work for percussion ensemble that tells the story of a corporate office worker trapped in a cubicle farm, desperately trying to escape the ever-growing grip of technology in search of peace and quiet. That piece was also inspired by Papa, who was a percussionist and jazz musician, among many other things.
When Papa passed, I knew I wanted to write something in his memory.
I initially sketched out several ideas, mostly instrumental, but nothing felt quite right. Despite his background as an instrumentalist and jazz musician, I couldn’t shake the feeling that instruments alone weren’t going to tell the story I wanted to tell.
During this period, I was also deeply inspired by Eric Whitacre’s choral work, Sleep. I was enamored with the piece, its conception, and the story of how it came to life, including the challenges surrounding its original text. The way Charles Anthony Silvestri was able to write new poetry that fit music Whitacre had already composed was incredible to me.
But what fascinated me most was the story I heard in the music.
To me, Sleep represents the final moments of life. Slowly closing your eyes, drifting off, and going to sleep for the very last time. A peaceful departure, and perhaps the way many of us hope our own final moments will be.
With Papa’s passing happening during a time when I was so fixated on this musical portrayal of death, the two experiences began to intertwine.
I knew I wanted to explore that same emotional territory, but I didn’t want to simply recreate something that had already been written.
Instead, I started asking myself a different question:
What happens next?
The Beginning of Flight
That question became the foundation for Flight.
Rather than telling the story of someone’s final moments, I wanted to explore the brief moments immediately following death. Not from a religious perspective, but from a more universal, personal one.
What happens after that final breath?
What if the soul, finally released from the physical limitations of the body, is free from pain, suffering, and the weight it carried during life? What if there’s a moment of absolute freedom, when everything that once held us down simply falls away?
The soul’s shackles are broken.
The aches and pains disappear.
And for the first time, the soul is free to soar, beginning its final flight toward whatever place it calls home.
That was the story I wanted to tell.
I spent several weeks writing the text, imagining it as a sort of spiritual continuation of the story I personally heard in Sleep. I shared it with several poets and composers, gathered feedback, and ultimately made very few changes.
Once I felt confident in the story, I began setting the music.
Originally, I planned to include a piano accompaniment as another nod to Papa, who was also a jazz pianist. But the further I got into the piece, the more I realized that wasn’t what the music needed.
It needed the warmth, vulnerability, and purity of the human voice.
Nothing else.
So Flight became a work for SATB a cappella choir.
When the Music Stopped
The first week or so of composing went fairly well. I wrote the opening and began setting the first stanza of text. As I normally do with many of my compositions, I then jumped ahead to the climax.
I’ve always found it helpful to know where a piece is going emotionally. If I can write the climax first, I can develop the music toward that moment rather than trying to force a climax after everything else has already been written.
It’s a process that has worked well for me many times.
But this time was different.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t hear it.
I wrote several versions of the climax, each one feeling more disappointing than the last. None of those early attempts survived into the final version of Flight.
I’ve always had a personal way of knowing when I’ve written something that works. If I get chills listening to the playback, or if the music evokes a strong emotional response in me, I know I’m onto something.
That wasn’t happening.
Maybe I was putting too much pressure on myself because of how personal the piece was. Maybe it was because I had graduated from Eastern Illinois University and was no longer surrounded by the musicians, performances, and creative environment that had inspired me every day.
Or maybe I was struggling to find my own musical voice while being so heavily influenced by someone else’s work. I didn’t want to write something that sounded like a poor imitation of Eric Whitacre.
If I’m being honest, it was probably a combination of all three.
Whatever the reason, I found myself facing a level of writer’s block I had never experienced before.
And it didn’t just affect Flight.
It affected everything.
At first, I figured I just needed a few weeks away from the score. I’d come back with fresh ears, find some inspiration, and finish what I’d started.
But every time I returned, I found myself rehashing the same ideas.
Nothing felt original. Nothing felt sentimental. Nothing felt connected to the story I was trying to tell.
As a composer, I take a tremendous amount of pride in telling stories through my music. There are very, VERY few exceptions to that in my catalog.
Writing music simply for the sake of writing music has never been particularly fulfilling for me.
And when I couldn’t connect emotionally with what I was writing, I couldn’t justify continuing down that path.
So I stopped.
Weeks turned into months.
Months turned into years.
And before I knew it, more than a decade had passed.
During that time, I struggled to produce anything creatively that I was truly proud of. I had ideas, sketches, and occasional bursts of inspiration, but nothing that felt connected to who I was as a composer.
Many composers will tell you that not everything you write is going to be good. Some pieces won’t fit your catalog, your style, or the artistic identity you’re trying to build.
And that’s absolutely true.
But there’s a difference between writing something that isn’t particularly good and writing something you can’t even connect with emotionally.
At least for me, that’s an entirely different feeling.
And it was incredibly discouraging.
Finding My Way Back
A little over a year ago, something changed.
I joined the Westerville Concert Band and was immediately thrown into the principal bassoonist role, something I was incredibly honored to take on.
I cannot begin to describe how good it felt to be playing again.
During those first few rehearsals and concerts, I couldn’t stop smiling. I was surrounded by talented musicians, making music together, and experiencing something I hadn’t felt in a very long time.
It felt like coming home.
I’ve written more about that experience in another blog post, but the important part of this story is what happened next.
I started feeling inspired again.
Sitting alongside talented musicians, meeting new people, hearing their stories, listening to them play, and experiencing the incredible range of musical backgrounds and abilities within our ensemble reignited something in me.
A spark that I hadn’t realized just how desperately I needed.
Eventually, I decided to open that old Flight score.
I knew that if I was going to get back into composing, this was the piece I needed to finish first.
I didn’t want to start something new while this unfinished work was still sitting there, waiting for me.
So I dipped my toe back in.
I started slowly, working through sections of the text that I hadn’t yet set. I began hearing harmonies again, imagining the movement of the music, and painting the emotional picture in my head that had been missing for so long.
Little by little, the piece began taking shape.
And then, one day, it happened.
I wrote the climax.
I’ll never forget that moment.
For the first time in more than a decade, everything clicked.
The harmonies, the movement, the emotion, the story. Everything I had been trying to accomplish suddenly came together.
I was shaking.
I was emotional.
And I knew, without a doubt, that this was the version of the climax I had been searching for all those years.
It was so overwhelming that I actually had to step away from my computer and go for a walk just to calm myself down.
But something else happened that day, too.
The spark was back.
Suddenly, I started hearing other music in my head. New ideas began appearing. Inspiration started coming from places in my life that I hadn’t drawn from creatively in years.
The dam had finally broken.
And the water has been rushing in ever since.
Two Journeys Home
As I worked toward completing Flight, I began to realize something that I hadn’t fully understood when I first started writing it.
This piece had become about so much more than my grandfather’s passing.
It had become about my own journey, too.
For Papa, Flight represents the soul’s journey after death. A release from pain and suffering, a final moment of freedom, and the journey toward whatever place we believe our souls call home.
But for me, Flight represents something else entirely.
My journey home.
Music is where I belong.
It’s where I’ve always belonged.
I’ve been fortunate to build a successful career outside of music, and I’m grateful for the opportunities and experiences that career has given me.
But nothing else in my professional life has ever provided the same level of emotional fulfillment, comfort, gratitude, and satisfaction that music has.
Music has always come naturally to me in a way that very few other things in life ever have.
And somewhere along the way, I lost that connection.
For more than a decade, I struggled to find my way back to something that had once been such an enormous part of who I was.
In a strange way, the very piece that had contributed to that creative struggle became the piece that helped me overcome it.
I originally wrote Flight to honor Papa and tell the story of his soul finding its way home.
I never imagined that, all these years later, it would also tell the story of mine.
And I think that’s what makes this piece so special to me.
Sharing Flight With the World
After more than a decade, Flight is finally complete.
It’s a work for SATB a cappella choir, dedicated:
For Papa, who helped inspire the next generation of musicians in our family.
My hope is that the music resonates with listeners and performers, regardless of their personal beliefs about what happens after death.
We all experience loss. We all carry memories of people who have shaped our lives. And we all have places, people, or experiences that make us feel like we’re home.
For me, that’s what Flight is ultimately about.
It tells two stories: the journey of a soul finding peace after death, and the journey of a composer rediscovering the part of himself that had been missing for far too long.
If you’re a choral director, I hope you’ll consider Flight for your ensemble. And if you do perform it, please let me know! I would genuinely love to hear about your experience with the piece.
A Few Thank-Yous
Before wrapping this up, I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the people who helped me bring Flight across the finish line.
After more than ten years away from composing, I had to do something that felt incredibly vulnerable.
I had to open myself and my music up to criticism.
I reached out to composers, professional singers, choral directors, educators, and ensembles, asking them to look at nearly every aspect of the piece.
I wanted to know whether the music was singable, whether the writing was effective, whether the story resonated, and whether this was something directors would actually want to program.
Most importantly, I wanted to make sure that the piece I had spent so many years working on could finally become the piece I had always envisioned.
To Logan, Wendy (and ensemble), Kristin, Timothy, and Justin: if you’re reading this, thank you.
Thank you for taking the time to read through the score, share your thoughts, challenge my decisions, and provide the feedback that helped shape Flight into the work it is today.
Your insight was incredibly valuable, and I will always be grateful.
After all these years, it feels pretty incredible to finally say:
Flight is finished.
And in more ways than one, I’m finally home.
