On December 9th I was an evaluator at Valencia High

School for several of their students senior projects.

I had an fantastic group of kids that all showed real focus

and energy, as well as presence.

On Sunday, December 5th I attended, as chaperone,

Candlelight at Disneyland. The afternoon rehearsal was

marvelous and quite moving. However, Mr. Weather arrived

and rained out the two evening performances.

On Thursday, December 2 Steven's musical was premiered

at Valencia High School. MAD WORLD examines just what was

occurring in the tumultuous life of Lewis Carroll when he was

writing "Alice In Wonderland". Steven composed an emotional

score with intense and moving lyrics. His work already shows a very

musically mature voice. He assembled a small band and they accompanied

an extremely talented cast. It ran just two nights, but was such a

success that it will continue to be work shopped this spring.

Here's what happened in November:

Teaching is still plugging along. I produced a recording

session for my class at THE BRIDGES, a rather new, and excellent,

medium size recording stage in Glendale. I've added a few new private

composition students. Our son, Steven, has written a musical and

I got to do the lead sheets for all the music. I spent several days

working on college application materials for both boys. Still

have 2-3 city events to attend to each week. On the 20th I produced

another scoring session, this time at the Spielberg Stage at USC.

A quick review of what happened in October:

Still teaching two days a week.

The 13th thru the 17th I traveled to Deerfield Illinois

(just north of Chicago) to attend my high schools 50 anniversary.

While visiting the hallowed halls of dear old Deerfield High School,

I participated in an alumni discussion panel for 600 of the current

students. I gave lectures on film and tv composition to the choir

and a theory class. The DHS band director, Dan Brame was kind

(or foolish) enough to give me his concert band for an hour. I had

them run thru a movement from one of my concert band compositions

PICTURES AT AN ANIMATION EXHIBITION. I added their

orchestras string section to the piece and we ended up with a

great sounding ensemble of almost a 100 kids.

It's now September 1 and two days a week are committed to teaching.

Weekends are going to be filled up the next six weeks constructing a

very large shade structure in the courtyard of our church. I attend one,

or two Arts Commission events a week and am able to squeeze in a

bit of composition time now and then.

August 2nd thru 6th I had a couple of my smart USC grad come up and get me up to speed on DP. I then spent the next few weeks composing and sequencing material for a new CD project that should be finished up by the first of the year. On August 23 I started back to teaching composition and conducting for the film scoring program at USC (called, Scoring for Motion Pictures and Television).

The first three weeks of July were very relaxed work wise.

I spent quite a bit of time with Arts Commission meetings and events.

Several days were focused on college search and preparation for both of our boys.

The last week of July I arranged a series of worship praise tunes for a horn

funk band we call "The Phunky Pharisees". Our premiere performance was

at a block party at Valencia United Methodist Church.