En route to the 2024 ASTA Conference in Louisville, Kentucky

As a write this, I am sitting at the Chicago Midway Airport, awaiting my connecting flight to Louisville. I'm very excited to be attending this year's ASTA conference! This will be my second time going - the first time I went was in 2018, and I was so inspired and invigorated by everything that I started writing a song for beginning orchestra. I didn't have an instrument to play on, or a computer with music notation software, so I simply typed the first section in the notes app on my phone. It was incredibly cumbersome but I was having fun, so it didn't matter. I often struggle with coming up with a title for music I've written. I like to think it's because the music speaks for itself, and no words can accurately capture its intricacies. In reality, it's probably mostly due to my crippling perfectionism. In this instance, I decided to draw inspiration from the location of the conference (Atlanta, Georgia) and used the name of the street where my hotel was. Thus, Peach Tree March, which went on to become a perennial favorite among my beginning orchestra students, and eventually was my first published work.

Anyway, all that to say, I am excited to be at ASTA again this year! Who knows, perhaps inspiration will strike again. If you are also at the conference, catch me at the Wingert-Jones booth for their composer Meet & Greet on Thursday, March 21 from 1-2pm.