The Return

So it may or may not have been over a year ago that I last posted. And it may or may not have been titled something like "The Night Before." It's equally possible that "The Next Day" was ever documented (if you haven't heard: the Tabernacle performance was unbelievable--perfect even, and Pres. Monson and Uchtdorf were there!)

And so now here I am, 15 months or so later on a whole new "Night Before."

For those who have not heard, last November I applied to graduate school. See, for the last few years, around Feb or March of each year, I think to myself, "Maybe I should go back to school...maybe I should actually study music...or maybe something else..." The problem with having those thoughts in Feb or March is that the deadline to apply to most grad programs worth going to is usually in Nov or Dec, and therefore long past.

In fact, over the last couple of years, I've made inquiries to a couple of different music schools (Arizona State, Univ. of Utah) to see if they'd consider accepting a Business major into their graduate music programs, but none of them seemed all that enthusiastic about the idea.

Well as I said, last November, after recovering a little from the premiere of "Blackbeard" at the Herberger in Phoenix (more on that later), the thought again occured to me to go back to school. One of the programs I'd looked at over and over again was the Scoring for Motion Pictures and Television program at the Univ. of Southern California in L.A. As it turned out, when I checked their website, I found that their application deadline was about 5 days away. So I quickly threw together a demo, updated my resume and gathered some letters of recommendation. I knew it was a longshot--it's the most prestigious program of its kind in the world, they only accept 20 students each year, and I have no real formal musical training and certainly no degree in music. But worth a try, right?

Well, the holidays came and with the new year, McKane Davis and I decided to re-work our World War II show "The Price of Freedom," record a new album, shoot some video of the piece and do a week's worth of performances at the Mesa Arts Center in February. Sounds easy, right? It wasn't, but very worth it. Amazing performances, great crowds and, as usual, good times with some of my favorite performers of all time (Tyler, Linsey, Jenee, Jordan, Kaitlynn, Aaron, Michael, and two Lisa B's). You can see most of the video we shot and hear the album here: www.spiremusic.org/tpof.

A few weeks later, I decided to finally return to the area where I served my mission: the southwest of France. I spent 2 weeks there in early April. That was certainlyl an experience (and one for another day...).

When I got back to the States I had a letter from USC. They accepted me. I don't know why, but they accepted me. I mean, ASU and U of U didn't want me and this is USC!!! Maybe the horrible economy left them with fewer applicants...

So here I am in Los Angeles. I moved here Aug 1 and will tomorrow officially start the program. The program lasts just one school year and they'll pack a whole lot into that year. Today we had our course orientation and they'll certainly have us running. Perfect for me. I love being busy. The group is quite a collection: 3 from the U.K., 1 from Spain, 1 from South Korea, 1 from Japan, just one girl and she's from Canada. Looks like, as I expected, I'm the only one without an undergraduate degree in some musical field. So we'll see how long I can fake it...

We'll be constantly writing, recording, learning technology and technique. We'll be scoring student films (from one of the best film schools in the world): narratives, documentaries, animated films and even video games. And my goal is to document it all here.

I know you're all thinking right now, "Yeah right. Next entry will be at the end of the semester." But I'm really going to try, not only to keep everyone who cares up to speed on everything I get to do here, but also for my own sake (if you can't guess, I'm not the best journal-keeper).

So there you are. Another adventure, another city. I've hit the beach twice already and it's been gorgeous. Especially after another Arizona July.

Till next time...