In the composer’s own words:

The night of my first and last singing audition – for the school musical – I was desperate; I was 15 years old and tremendously interested in the combination of music and theatre and I yearned to play a part in the show. In order to pursue this interest, I simply had to be involved in our production of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. My yearning paid off. Even though I butchered my interpretation of “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head,” – with no help from a near-sighted accompanist, who stopped accompanying, halfway through – I managed to land the title role.

Then, during rehearsals, I found myself particularly intrigued by the piece itself – by how the music looked on the page, by the choral and melodic structures, and especially by how the composer used the different instruments in the orchestra (e.g., a low steady roll on the timpani to portray Snoopy’s WWI aircraft). By performance time, I had come to realize that singing, acting, and dancing in front of a live audience is exhilarating, but is also one of the most terrifying things a human can volunteer to do. I understood clearly that my creative life was to be lived “behind the scenes.”

So, for the past several years, I’ve kept busy “behind the scenes”, studying and trying to comprehend the mysteries of composition and orchestration. My work has often led me away from theatre, and yet it seems to me that all that work, whether theatrical or otherwise, has been a preparation for the enormous experience of Filumena. Being able to collaborate with John Murrell, and all our other gifted colleagues, has been one of the most fulfilling and joyous experiences of my life. I have been blessed with an extremely gifted and generous ensemble of musicians, capable of breathing life and magic into our music and words.

And, although I occasionally fantasize about being up there onstage, performing the “Storm Aria”, or Picariello’s big entrance scene, or being a part of one of the several choral ensembles – I definitely feel that sitting safely in the shadows, and listening to the fine manifestation of these voices which lived in my head for so many months, is the next best thing – maybe even better, and certainly far less frightening.