I am a writer, scholar, teacher, musician, interdisciplinary collaborator, and arts administrator. I am also a lapsed percussionist, aspiring humorist, pretend acoustician, wannabe visual artist, occasional trail runner, semi-satirical motivational speaker, and hapless gardener.
I am the author of Draw a Straight Line and Follow It: The Music and Mysticism of La Monte Young (Oxford University Press) and The Island of Bali Is Littered With Prayers (Mormon Artists Group). My writing has appeared in The Musical Quarterly, New Music Box, American Music, Dialogue, McSweeney’s, and various other publications. I am the founding director of Gamelan Bintang Wahyu, the Balinese percussion ensemble at Brigham Young University, where I teach on the music faculty and serve as an associate dean in the College of Fine Arts and Communications.
My current projects include a book about music called The SCR/EAM Method: Towards a Disposition of Aural Empathy, and a non-fiction novel called The Dream Mine, which tells the stranger-than-fiction story of John H. Koyle’s quixotic quest for mystical gold.