The Composer's Life

In this episode, I sit down with songwriter, composer, and pianist Esther Ling to discuss her unconventional path from engineering to music. Born in Malaysia and now based in Calg…

If you're looking to learn more about how to take yourself seriously as a musician, create a brand and business around what you do, and want the steps to get to there, you will fin…

Join me in interviewing Odaline de la Martinez — an award-winning composer, conductor, record producer, and event curator — as we speak about Afro-Cuban's influence in western musi…

In this second part of my conversation with composer Daniel Asia, we move deeper into the practical and philosophical side of a composing career: how composers navigate opportuniti…

In this first part of my conversation with composer Daniel Asia — a Yale graduate with a long-standing career in concert and contemporary composition — we explore his path into mus…

Releasing music as a composer isn’t just about finishing a track, but involves many forms of creativity in design, marketing, and more. In this episode of The Composer’s Life, I ta…

Video game music sits at the intersection of composition, sound design, and interactive storytelling, and in this episode, I sit down with composer and sound designer Michael Sweet…

Erich Stem began composing for orchestras at just twelve years old — and has continued building a career around writing music ever since. In this episode of The Composer’s Life, I…

A career in composition doesn’t always follow a single path. Today I sit down with composer Richard Carrick to talk about his work across composition, performance, and academia, an…

Some of the most famous composers in history had surprisingly strange routines when it came to creativity — from strict daily habits to unusual rituals and superstitions. In this e…

A quick update from The Composer’s Life — I’ve just launched a new newsletter. In this short episode, I share what it is, why I’ve started it, and what you can expect if you decide…

In part two of my conversation with Sheldon Mirowitz, we move into the day-to-day reality of composing — how ideas are shaped, refined, and carried through to finished work. We tal…

Some composers talk about what they do. Others talk about how they think. In this episode of The Composer’s Life, I sit down with film and television composer Sheldon Mirowitz to e…

Timothy Huling is a composer, conductor, and orchestrator whose work spans film, television, video games, and the concert hall. In this episode, I sit down with him to talk about w…

Claes Nystrom is an Emmy-winning composer and sound designer, recognized for his work on what has been described as the first deepfake-related cybersecurity threat to a democracy.…

Claudio Ragazzi is an Emmy and Grammy award-winning composer, guitarist, and professor at Berklee College of Music — and in this episode, I sit down with him to talk about his work…

In part two of my conversation with film and TV composer Blair Mowat, we move further into the realities of working as a composer — from the day to day creative process to navigati…

Blair Mowat is a film and TV composer whose work spans drama, documentary, and large-scale productions — and in this first part of our conversation, we talk about how his career de…

Kevin Lax and Robert Lydecker are film composers whose work spans film, television, and media — and in this episode, I sit down with them to talk about their approach to composing…

Locrian is the mode that doesn’t quite settle anywhere. It feels unstable from the very first note — not because something is wrong, but because of the way it refuses to resolve in…