PREFACE Over the past year while planning out the music for this album, I was trying to tie together all of the pieces into one overall concept. I thought I would keep to this initial idea of developing a concept album that focused on the story of Baudelaire’s “The Generous Gambler.” While stepping through the process of writing/recording the music, I realized that the initial idea didn’t really fit all of the pieces conceptually. Therefore, I took a step back and reflectively discovered the pieces tied together because the compositions carried strong extra-musical associations to memories I have had throughout my development as a composer, and through my life. Even as a performer during my development (pre-college), the strong connections I had to a piece were tied to specific events, images, words, friendships, relationships, and artistic interactions. Truly each piece I chose for my album reflects some of these meaningful extra-musical ...