As a freelance composer (and therefore a small business owner), the first task of the new year is emptying all my receipt folders into envelopes so that I start the new year fresh. And conveniently, to already be organised for tax time.
A nice thing about freelancing is that every project, large or small, gets the payoff of a sense of completion. But then I’m immediately on to the next project, and my focus is intent on the piece right in front of me. So I’m completely in the moment, and pretty soon what happened last week seems a distant memory. Read more ›
For someone whose job is largely sitting in front of manuscript paper, pencil in hand, I seem to spend a lot of time on planes. The exact number varies widely from year to year. A couple of years ago I did a lot of travelling for concerts and projects, and was on 48 different planes in a twelve-month period. So I am quite familiar with the 
Most of my projects over the last few years have been collaborations, which opens up my world and allows me to work creatively with artists in other disciplines. 
When composers are first learning to a compose, it’s a given that we’ll be at most (if not all) the rehearsals, plus the concert(s). In the beginning, this is frequently because we’ve organised the entire thing ourselves: we’ve asked all the players, arranged for the hall, worked out the schedule. We might even be conducting or performing, or both. As our careers progress, we get used to being there. 