She's Off Being Famous.

So, today my beautiful Amanda left for tour.  

Her travel itinerary for getting from Florida to Brazil is insane: She left Orlando, has a layover in Colombia, and has another layover in Brazil before she finally gets to São Paulo.  Yuck!  

It was/is crazy hard letting her go.  We won't see each other until December! :'(

As you know, we were presenting a show called SPRING AWAKENING together at 

the Henegar Center for the Arts.  

Luckily, she got ALL of the choreography taught before she left, but I just wish she could have been here for opening night. 

Thank God for FaceTime; we will be making great use of it in the coming months!

Drums? Check!

I'm having a blast in SPRING AWAKENING rehearsals!  

I'm finally done teaching the music to the vocalists and I can now focus on the details!  

We are out of the rehearsal studio and in the theatre.  The space is so intimate and perfect for this show.

We ran Act I in its entirety tonight AND I brought my drums and played for tonight's rehearsal!

So proud of this production and cast. 

My Kit

   

The Venue

Here's a sneak peak of the space we are performing SPRING AWAKENING in!

The band will be on a platform suspended nine feet directly above where I took this picture!

Upstairs at The Henegar Center

Soon...

I got my contract in the mail for my next tour!  I'm super excited to be going back out on the road again.  I leave late September/early October.  

There are some new cites on the schedule that I have never been to before

 that I'm really looking forward to.  

I have actually never been to Alaska before; this tour is bringing me to Anchorage!  

I'm already looking into fishing trips, whale watching tours, and bear repellent.

But seriously, I'm really looking forward to multiple fishing trips!

Having lived in Florida my entire life, salt/brackish water fishing 

is something I am very familiar with.  

I personally prefer freshwater fishing to saltwater fishing 

(I guess it's the whole not having to worry about getting eaten by a shark or alligator bit).

Bring on the pike, trout, and salmon!

Rainbow trout fishing a few years ago:

Bennett Spring State Park (2010)

  

Revisiting An Old Friend.

Today, Amanda and I actually got to watch a show!  I know what you're thinking....

Shouldn't we be on the stage?  

Nope, not this time!  

We got to enjoy a wonderful matinée at the theatre where we first met six years ago.

The show we met on was GUYS AND DOLLS (she was a doll and I was the guy drummer).    

   

Still rehearsing SPRING AWAKENING!  This is going to be a good show!  

The Miami Trip!

So, after finishing SPRING AWAKENING rehearsal on Thursday, Amanda and I took a short trip down to Miami to get her work visa for Brazil.  Yes, her tour is bringing her to South America as well as the USA! 

I'm not jealous at all. (take me with you) 

Now, prior to this trip, I hadn't been to Miami in yonks (thanks, Amanda for putting yonks into my vocabulary).  I remember there being a ton of hispanic people and just European people in general the last time I was there.  Well, that hasn't changed.  It was kinda nice though.  We got all of the foreign charm and we didn't even have to leave the East Coast of Florida!  

After taking care of the visa situation, we visited an awesome outdoor mall in South Beach called Lincoln Road Mall.  I highly recommend tooling around there!  We were just there to kill some time and to pick up a few things from Lush, but we came across some other fantastic places along the way.  

There are a ton of great restaurants (I'm a bit of a foodie). We ate at Cafe Nuvo.  Delicious food and great atmosphere!  Amanda's pesto was a bit on the oily side, but my penne salmon was money!

Delicious baguette and olive oil balsamic vinegar appetizer

After we re-fueled, we explored what felt like a hundred different clothing stores.....There are a ton!  And some I had never been to/heard of, but found out really enjoyed their style: Scotch & Soda and AllSaints (wish I could afford this clothing at the moment). 

The dressing rooms in J.Crew

We had a great little "staycation" now it's back to the grind.  Back to rehearsals for 

SPRING AWAKENING!

I'm in Miami.

Okay!  And so it begins! Amanda and I are in Miami at the Consulate General of Brazil to get her work visa for tour. We are making a little "staycation" out if it. :)

On a side note, I'm doing this blog entry on the mobile app.....I hope it doesn't look too weird....

Adeus!

Hello, World!

Hello, world, indeed!

I'm new to the world of blogging and not sure where to start...

This is a blog about my life (past, present, and future) as a musician. 

Let me catch you all up.  So let's start in the past, shall we?

I grew up in a musical family: my Dad, Grandfather, and Uncle were percussionists back in the day and my Mom played the trumpet in High School.  

Why do I mention this?  

Well, I am positive that if it wasn't for my family and their understanding and support (even when it came to quitting college to go out on tour - I'll get to that later) I wouldn't be where I am today.   

PAST:

I'm predominately a drummer/percussionist who also music directs/conducts and composes/arranges whenever I can.  I began drumming late in life (for most musicians) at the age of ten.  Five years later, I started performing in pit orchestras for community musical theatre productions and have been bitten by that bug ever since.  Even though I started in community theatre, my career as a musician has been quite eclectic thus far:  I have performed in theme parks (Disney and Busch Gardens Florida), tried to start multiple rock bands (what "drummer" hasen't?), freelanced around the state (jazz gigs etc.), and I have done two National Broadway Tours (SOUTH PACIFIC, ELF: The Musical) and one International Broadway Tour (SHREK: The Musical) in Asia.  This brings me to the quitting college part.  

I quit college in the last semester of my Undergraduate degree to go out on the National Tour of SOUTH PACIFIC.  This was an extremely hard decision to make, but luckily I had my friends and family there to support me.  I eventually went back and received (in May) my Bachelor of Music Degree in Jazz Studies (performance) from the University of South Florida.  

Whew!  Now that that's over with...

PRESENT:

My beautiful girlfriend (choreographer) and myself (music director/conductor/drummer) are in the middle of rehearsals for a wonderful production of SPRING AWAKENING at The Heneger Center for the Arts in Melbourne, Florida.  We are very proud/excited for this project and look forward to opening this show August 1st!

FUTURE: 

The main purpose of this Blog!  Both myself and my girlfriend are about to go out on tour!  Sadly, we will not be on the same tour, but both of us will be blogging about our journeys along the way.  

Please stay tuned to see what tours we are on!

Cheers!