Dear new subscribers: I have been thrilled and edified by how people have flocked to this new substack in recent weeks, and I thought I’d pen a quick welcome to what I intend to do here. First, a brief introduction: My primary everyday work moves between teaching in academia (for better and worse, depending on the day) and working as a composer. As a composer I long concentrated on serious or “new classical” music, writing the requisite chamber pieces and string quartets for a number of years. The first major culmination of this effort was my initial portrait disc, Blood Forgotten, which was released through Naxos American Classics. If you’re interested, I’m providing the Amazon and Spotify links here: I hope that you find a way to listen. The disc actually represents some of my more difficult music, as string quartets tend to be where composers really strive for their highest musical thinking. As such, a brief listening guide: If you’re a big fan of contemporary classical music, go ahead and listen straight through. If new classical music is not your pasttime, I’d ask that you start with the last track, the lullaby “A Usnijze mi, usnij” (O sleep for me, sleep), and then circle back to the beginning. In the coming weeks, I’m planning on writing some reflections on these pieces, as a preamble to the release of my next CD, “Metanoia.”
My second CD, Metanoia, is a much more broad presentation of my music since the release of the initial Naxos effort. It has choral music, chamber music, some sacred works for voice and baroque instruments, a piano trio, and a piece for cello duo and electronics which I hope really surprises people who really don’t go for this kind of music. We’re waiting for the international digital and hard-copy pre-order links, but in the meantime the wonderful Polish local label, DUX Recording Producers, has provided an initial pre-order link. When this album does finally emerge, I’ll be writing reflections on its contents, some of which may constitute my first paid-only articles.
Quite ironically, after giving up the idea of film scoring many years ago, I’ve recently done a number of projects in this realm, mostly related to my rather unapologetic stance on Catholicism. Numerous small projects came and went, but the first truly international project was the soundtrack to the EWTN documentary, Discovering Tolkien. A few years later, I connected with director and producer Cameron O’Hearn, and found myself composing the majority of the music used in the Mass of the Ages Trilogy. I’ve been shocked and humbled to see millions of people internationally view this, and am excited to begin to work on the third and final installment of this trilogy in the coming months.
So why writing, and why Substack? I think my first full post, On the Orientation of Hope, answered this question philosophically and spiritually. And yet there are more practical and workaday concerns which in their own way reach towards the everlasting hills. In short, I’m a composer and academic, and I do not generally comport myself to the narrow ideological fashions of either industry. But I have also always moved beyond music into writing projects and wider commentaries: as a child, I thought I’d be a writer. I’ve been admittedly somewhat careful about how I express these differences, as I was for a while an untenured professor who still had four children to feed. Yet an old professor once told me: “There is nothing more precious than being able to get up in the morning as an older man, look at yourself in the mirror, and actually like who is looking back at you.” Being authentic is important, yes, but (as Jordan Peterson has taught us in recent years) being truthful and hold is even more imporant. This lead me to write some articles for onepeterfive.com over the years, where I still continue and have articles in the works. However I am also finding increasing means to express this other side of me, this side which is a writer and cultural critic and religious and political commentator.
I appreciate all of your support. For those who have become (or are considering becoming) paid subscribers or founders members, know that I will be treating this page as a bit of a patreon-type account in the future, and that every cent spent is a further encouragement (and indeed, moral imperative) for me to keep writing. There is so very much to say in this time of cultural collapse (or is it the overlap between the collapse and the setting of a new foundation for brighter days?), and I will make my contribution so long as God allows me to.
I am certain we will not always agree, but I do hope that you continue to join me on this journey, which will take us from music to various types of semi-musical (and even non-musical) commentaries, and perhaps help me in my own way contribute “music” and aesthetics to the famous saying by G.K. Chesterton:
“I never discuss anything else except politics and religion. There is nothing else to discuss.”