Your writing spans orchestral scoring, electronic production, jazz, voice, and now a new solo ambient EP. How do you think about your musical identity across all these different lanes? What feels like the through-line, or sound, that consistently shows up in your work?

Music is the language we speak. I think the way you tell a story, through your voice and your choices, becomes your identity over time. Phrasing, structure, timing, and how you express emotion creates a fingerprint. If you stay honest, that fingerprint shows up regardless of genre.

Whether I’m writing electronic music, orchestral music, singing, or making something more ambient, I’m always trying to be myself. My musical voice is really the culmination of my experiences and influences, the lens through which I hear and respond to the world. The genre changes, but the perspective doesn’t.

I’ve often been told there’s an ethereal through-line in my work. I’m drawn to nuance and subtlety, and I tend to prioritize emotional undercurrents rather than obvious gestures. I want the music to invite you in and make you lean forward to listen more closely.

Your score for Audrey’s Children features a jazz-hybrid palette that feels distinct within your catalogue. What drew you toward jazz for that story, and how did you shape a sound world that balanced intimacy, biography, and emotional momentum?

Audrey’s Children is my only jazz score, even though jazz was my first musical love. I went to Berklee as a jazz vocalist, and growing up I was obsessed with artists from Miles Davis and Bill Evans to Ella Fitzgerald. Even when I’m not writing explicitly in that style, those influences show up in how I phrase rhythm, shape momentum, and respond to feel.

Jazz has always felt like a conversation to me: musicians listening closely, reacting in real time, and improvising within structure. That sense of responsiveness and humanity felt especially right for this story.

From the beginning, Director Ami Canaan Mann knew she wanted a jazz-inflected score to articulate both the era and the inner life of Dr. Audrey Evans. The first piece I wrote was the opening sequence, a roughly ten-minute montage that established the emotional foundation of the story.

I gravitated toward flowing piano arpeggios to express her brilliant, effervescent mind, using polyrhythms and syncopation to create propulsion. That rhythmic energy became the bridge between the jazz vernacular and the more classical sensibilities of the score, allowing the music to move between intimacy and momentum without feeling fractured.

Ultimately, the music is bound by my interpretation of Dr. Evans’ subtlety, power, and complexity. Throughout the process, I kept asking myself one simple question: “Is this Audrey’s music?” If the answer was “no,” I kept pushing.

You mentioned spending five years working in advertising and music supervision before composing full-time. How did that chapter shape the way you approach storytelling and the business side of your artistic life now?

After graduating from Berklee with a degree in composition and film scoring, I interned at a music house in New York City, observing three in-house composers and watching how ideas moved from brief to final selection.

That led to working in-house at an ad agency, then as a music supervisor at Search Party Music, where I handled everything from creative problem-solving to clearing music, negotiating deals, and facilitating contracts. I was later hired to open and run the LA office for We Are Walker.

The biggest creative takeaway from working alongside such a variety of people is that what matters most is having a perspective. You can approach a scene in many ways and still be effective, but you need your own taste and the confidence to trust it.

Those years also taught me invaluable skills around budgeting, hiring, and managing people. Understanding how money flows and how decisions get made gave me confidence when I began composing full-time. That chapter continues to shape how I navigate both the artistic and business sides of my career today.

When you think about the composing life, the experimentation, problem-solving, and constant shift between creative freedom and deadlines, what keeps you energized and inspired?

Telling stories is what inspires me most. Whether it’s my own story or someone else’s, I’m always trying to understand the emotional journey and articulate it through music.

I also love learning new instruments, finding new sounds, and using my voice in different ways. I enjoy working with modular and analog synths that allow me to tinker and discover something new.

I’m a big fan of deadlines. They ground me in reality and help me give my best to whatever I’m writing at that moment.

You’ve written about loving the space between “human imperfection and machine precision.” What does that idea mean in practice for your creative process?

I like leaving in certain imperfections because that’s where your voice lives. I want melodies and harmonies to feel human, flowing like breath rather than tethered to perfection.

Machine precision is a grounding force rather than the focus, something clean the listener can hold onto while everything else moves and breathes around it.

Your early training included violin, jazz and classical voice, and piano. How would you describe your musical upbringing?

Making music was how I learned to feel good. I grew up an only child, and my mom’s piano became a place where I could explore emotion.

I fell deeply in love with jazz early on, memorizing scat solos and emulating the singers I admired, while also studying classical voice and being drawn to French repertoire. That relationship to emotion remains central to how I write.

Violin was my earliest training. Learning to tune a fretless instrument by ear fundamentally shaped how I hear.

The most formative influence came later with my composition teacher, Alla Elena Cohen. She pushed me to major in composition and film scoring and taught me how to stay comfortable with discomfort. That work ethic is still very present in my life today.

Your score for The Stand is deeply tied to collaboration with Haida Nation artists and traditions. What was that process like?

The Stand was my second collaboration with Director Christopher Auchter. From the beginning, he knew he wanted a score built around archival footage and a song for the film’s climax.

We worked with Carsen Gray and Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas, building “Feeling Good” around the frame drum and introducing strings to lift and cradle their voices. The score blends analog synths with chamber music, with each instrument reflecting elements of the story. The music wasn’t just accompaniment; it was designed to reflect the story itself.

Interview by Jocelyn Scofield

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