Composing During The Pandemic; a review

I’ve somehow managed to eek out an existence as a composer by fitting my composing time between all the spaces between life. Sometimes it leaves me feeling bloated; I have a young daughter who needs my attention, I have a job that requires me to be rested and mostly human most of the time, and I have a partner who is usually satisfied with knowing that aspire to have mostly human-like qualities.

But something surprising happened during the pandemic in that artists I know reached out to me and brought my work to life in some pretty exciting ways.

We have a set of pieces, that we’ve now renamed (for the third time) Murderous Melodies, that I’d almost completely forgotten that were adapted into a shadow puppet play by a group from Toronto, each piece tells the story of a beloved cartoon character being horribly massacred in some way. When I composed them, I asked each ensemble member whom their favourite cartoon character was and in a bid of top tier trolling, I turned it around on them and let my dark humour run wild.

Also, Alouette Meets Her Maker, has been championed by the Vancouver Chamber Choir and their new artistic director on their digital platform.

This is in addition to the short film projects I’ve done (View past posts below), and one or two we’re waiting on coming to fruition.

I’m absolutely grateful for this, especially since life has temporarily pulled me away from being able to do punishingly long days of composing. I have a pair of choral pieces I’m working on simultaneously, almost always a bad move for me, and I’m hoping to have them done for the fall.