a short autobiography

I am a 21st-century musicologist and classical composer, and I am out to prove the latter still has the capacity to be as relevant and meaningful as ever. I think the key is understanding the enduring usefulness and transformative potential of diverse global knowledges, particularly those which have been marginalized or dismissed by systems of colonial power, but also those familiar to the Western-orientated scholar. Music composition, within and outside academia, takes many, many forms, and this understanding, I believe, must be the foundation of our music composition pedagogy.

I was born to Jamaican and American parents in Burlington, VT, USA but have since relocated to Bristol, England. I have been awarded a PhD in Music from the University of Bristol. My dissertation was on paradigmatic issues surrounding music composition within UK university spaces, envisaged through the lens of decolonial theory (Aníbal Quijano, Walter Mignolo, and others). My supervisors were Justin Williams and Michael Ellison. I received my Master of Music degree from Goldsmiths, University of London, learning from those like Lauren Redhead and Roger Redgate, among other amazing tutors. My research area was aesthetic diversity and curricular reform in higher music education. If this sounds vague, please ask me to talk about it because I love to share. My Bachelor of Music degree is from Ithaca College in upstate New York where I primarily studied with Jorge Villavicencio Grossmann, Dana Wilson, and Sally McCune. I have been fortunate enough to have my compositions played throughout the United States and Europe, and I can only hope that one day my music can reach even further.

As much as I love and am inspired by contemporary classical composition, I live as much in the popular music worlds as the classical world because these aesthetics are all invaluable to the 21st-century musician. As the world becomes more globally connected, so should the music we make. This is why I also produce music under the name AM Colossus, and I encourage composers to write the music you want to write, even if it is not strictly “classical”, because remember: you can make any art you want.

I love black & white photography, Jack Kerouac, Hiatus Kaiyote, avocados, ASMR, linguistics, and binge-watching cooking shows. The following is an except from my 2015 personal statement:

"I want to be steeped in academia for the sake of furthering my own understanding of something I am so passionate about. I want to teach other people who share this passion to analyze, critique, and justify their philosophy and their understanding of their own art. I want to blow the lid off the increasingly ambiguous moniker 'classical music.' I never want to be the composition professor who dismisses non-classical music in its entirety, nor the professor who cannot intelligently discuss jazz or theater or popular music if a student brings such music to our lesson. I have experienced both of these things, and it is incredibly disheartening. I want to be able to foster as many forms and aesthetics as I can so every student can feel validated in their individual learning, so I study as many diverse musical areas as I can in preparation for this. There are few things more fulfilling to me than a student who has finally digested all they have learned—a student whose daily work comes to fruition in a grand revelation or carefully nurtured masterpiece. Fostering the development of students goes hand in hand with fostering one's own development, and this is all I could ask for when finally complete all my post-graduate work; for me, there is nothing more incredible."

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