I n June, I found out that my orchestral work Titanium and Mercury  (which is the first movement of my in-progress second symphony but extracted as a stand-alone work) I won First Prize in the 2nd International Michal Kloefas Ogninsk Symphony Orchestra Contest for Young Composers!   I've never won first prize in an overseas competition before, so it was great to hear this news!  The jury told me that my piece really reminded them of Prokofiev (which is a bit surprising to me) and it looks like the piece will be scheduled to be premiered in Molodechno, Belarus in spring 2021!

Just last week, on August 10, I had my first performance since February when the British pianist Maria Marchant   gave a beautiful premiere of my Prelude No. 17 (For the Left Hand) in London, UK as part of her "7 Notes in 7 Days at 7pm" project.  

Back in April, I was fortunate to have pianist Adam Marks record a video of my Prelude No. 18 (On the Day of Penderecki's Death) as part of his "One Page Pieces" project.  As the title suggest, I wrote this short work (about 30 seconds long) on the day I heard that legendary Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki passed away at the end of March.  While not a "threnody" for him, I was thinking about him as I wrote the piece.