//Michael Colgrass

Sometime around 1993/94 I got a call from someone named Michael Colgrass, expressing an admiration for some of the playing I was doing around town (Toronto), and explaining that he was a composer and would I like to get together sometime. I was so busy in those days, with 2 very young kids, and working as hard as possible to try to feed and clothe them, that the invitation sort of slipped by me and, in those pre-Google times, it didn’t really register on me who it was that had called. A year or so later Michael showed up at a concert I was doing with Rob Piltch and Don Thompson at Glenn Gould Studio, said hi, and gave me a recording of some of his music. When it finally penetrated my thick skull that this was Michael Colgrass, the renowned and revered composer of music for the world’s leading orchestras and soloists, and legendary teacher I immediately made contact and embarked upon a wonderful period of study and friendship with this remarkable man, and his wife Ulla. Many of episodes of Michael’s storied career are contained in his book “Michael Colgrass-Adventures Of An American Composer”, which is a great read for anyone. At a time that my life was in a fair bit of turmoil, and fraught with even more than the usual crises of self-confidence, to have someone like Michael show an interest and confidence in my ability was incredibly helpful. For a year or so I studied composition with him, which propelled me to embark on a lot of score study, orchestration, and ‘putting myself out there’ as a composer. As often happens various opportunities came up for me to write and arrange for more classically oriented groups (Art of Time, Patricia O’Callahan, Amici) and to write for strings in a jazz setting (the award winning Lost In The Stars album with Guido Basso), all of which helped increase my level of ability and confidence which and shifted the focus of my career more in the direction of writing. Up until then I had always written jazz tunes, and then for several years music (mostly jazz oriented) for commercials, but writing longer form music for concert ensembles was new and I found that I really enjoyed the process and the thrill of having my music performed by some of the great groups I got to work with. Michael was a wonderful teacher and inspiration at a time when I really needed it, and I am forever grateful for the belief he showed in me.

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