Today, I’m doing something for the 14th time in my career…releasing a new album! You might think that with so many albums out there, it must be old hat. Au contraire, it’s always very exciting! From the time an album is conceived to the day you release it, it’s usually a very lengthy process. But […]

Today is my final day teaching piano for this school year. That feels more poignant than past years as I have spent most of 20-21 only being able to see my students online. We all survived thanks to technology. But, also thanks to our collective enjoyment of music. I can’t remember a past time where […]

One of my favourite daily rituals is listening to music. These days, I’m using Spotify as my main source to listen and discover new music. I recently went out of my way to see how many of my own personal connections and music colleagues have their music on Spotify. I was surprised to see many […]

My wife/manager, Lisa, and I have had a pretty constant routine these past bunch of years as we roll through different creative music projects. And we’ve been very lucky to have worked on a number of large projects in that time. But this latest one seems extra special! From January 11-13, 2021, we will be […]

Are you a Canadian musician trying to navigate your way through the sometimes complex world of grant applications to fund your projects? It can be a daunting process…I know! But thanks to the collective work with my wife and manager, Lisa Horvat, we have been fortunate to receive a number of grants over the years […]

Other than composing, playing and teaching music, I also LOVE listening to music! Any and all styles, I’m always interested in discovering new things. In recent years as Spotify has come along, I appreciate their playlists where you can basically make “mix tapes” on various themes. It’s also interesting to see how my own music […]

Since the COVID pandemic began, I’ve been racking my brain in trying to come up with new ideas about how I should be functioning in this new reality of musical life. I feel grateful to have conceived and been facilitating the Music for Self-Isolation project, but I still feel that our music community could use […]

As the COVID Pandemic continues to ravage the Classical Music sector, I have been waiting this past many weeks of self-isolation for someone to announce the magic solution to all of our main challenges – when and how can live performances resume? And even when they do resume, how do we ensure that audiences will […]

Music Canada just commissioned Abacus Data to take a poll of Canadian music enthusiasts to see where they’re at with their consumption of music during this age of COVID. The results bring me feelings of both optimism and worry. Because of the lockdown, the public is consuming way more musical content online than they ever […]

This week I received the news that my former piano teacher, Boyanna Toyich, passed away. When I saw the news flash over my screen, I was stunned and suddenly filled with an immense amount of grief. When I was a student at the University of Toronto, Faculty of Music from 1993-97, she was a key […]

I’m so excited this week! I’ve been working on the music for this musical project for 5 years now. But this is the first week when I can really talk about it coming to life since we’re about 2 months away from unleashing Spend Your Kids’ Inheritance onto the world, or at least at the […]

As a composer, one of the steps in the creative process that I often find mentally difficult to grapple with is coming up with a title for a new work. Sometimes it can be so annoying that I often wish I could just call something “Untitled”. But it’s never gotten that bad that I’ve had […]

I recently attended the opening night of the Royal Conservatory’s 21C New Music Festival. It was a great evening of music by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and featured compositions by the likes of Terry Riley (who was present) and several amazing and dynamic Canadian composers. Before the concert began, RCM’s Executive Director of Performing Arts, […]