This page is a living snapshot of what currently has my attention — not finished work, not what I’m promoting, just what feels active and worth care right now. It changes as my priorities change.
I’m in a season of consolidation and clarity: less output, more intention. Fewer gestures, sharper ones.
Current as of November 2026.
WHAT I’M MAKING
Songs for a Shifting World, the debut album from my chamber ensemble the Black Square Ensemble, releases February 19, 2027 on Leaf Music. Recorded in November 2025, it’s now in final mixing, mastering, and liner notes.
It marks a clear turn in my work: away from jazz as a primary identity, toward a fully notated, contemporary classical language shaped by jazz harmony and disciplined restraint. Improvisation lives at the edges; the center is fixed, architectural, and slow to open.
The ensemble is anchored by bass-baritone Rod Nelman, alongside cellists Amanda Gookin and Adam Willson and percussionist Rogério Boccato. Most of the texts come from poet V. Penelope Pelizzon, with additional voices — Sara Goudarzi, Rev. Dr. Michael Pfleger, and Everette Hoagland — confronting human rights, climate collapse, gun violence, racial justice, and civic responsibility.
This album is not neutral. It reflects a shift toward the role of artist-citizen — composition as witness, refusal, and invitation.
We played Hartford’s Bushnell Park in July as a preview ahead of the release, with more performances planned to coincide with it.
WHAT I’M BUILDING ALONGSIDE IT
Big band writing for vocalist Atla DeChamplain has moved to the forefront of my other work — new charts still taking shape, after several years largely outside the jazz idiom.
In April, the UConn Jazz Faculty and UConn’s Human Rights Institute premiered Jazz & Justice Suite: A Declaration in Seven Movements, addressing human rights concerns from political participation to environmental advocacy. I’m now refining it further, aiming toward more performances and a recording.
WHAT MY FAMILY IS DOING
Jana finished her M.A. in Peace & Justice and is now focused on her writing — she publishes The Gathering Place on Substack.
Our kids are doing the hard, ordinary work of becoming themselves, and I’m grateful to be present for it.
HOW I RESET
I run — not as performance, but as release. After a failed Boston qualification attempt, I skipped the fall marathon this year in favor of a half marathon and shorter races, building speed and mileage. A BQ attempt may be back on the horizon a year out.
WHAT I’M LEARNING TO TRUST
My spiritual life is still in flux — active, not thin. I no longer identify with evangelical Christianity, particularly where it has chosen power and political allegiance over humility and honesty.
What I’m moving toward instead is a faith shaped by curiosity, doubt, and ethical seriousness — one that centers human dignity and understands love as action, not alignment. I’m learning to trust my own reading and experience; years with scripture and theology give me grounding, even outside someone else’s authority.
I’m less interested in productivity than precision. Less interested in consensus than integrity.
My now page lives here: nownownow.com/p/6dM7