When I approached my friend Paul about a collaboration for a piece with one of his ensembles, we ended up discussing how works for young bands are becoming saturated with intense works of art. While this is great news for musicians everywhere, I think it is leaving a chasm once filled by pieces that people loved for no other reason than that they were fun to play. The goal of “Watch Your Step” was to create a work that was both interesting and compelling aesthetically, but left the performers saying “I like it because it’s awesome!”

Attending High School in the 2010’s allowed me to experience Dubstep at its emergence. The influence of that sub-genre on modern Electronic Dance Music cannot be understated. In “Watch Your Step” I leverage stylings from Dubstep, EDM, and a few varieties of Jazz in order to create a piece that is unpredictable, inevitable, and grooves hard!