The Fredösphere

Allow me to introduce a young composer named Philip Rice.  Philip is the long-lost cousin of John, one of my closest friends.  A recent family funeral brought the two together, and Philip's background is so freakishly similar to mine, John introduced us via email.  Philip comes from a religious, home schooling family and has been interested in composing from childhood.  He even lived for a while in Coldwater, Michigan, the county seat of my ancestral home.  He now studies composition at Central Michigan University.  He has a myspace page that dazzles, although I speak as one with embarassing memories of how much (that is to say, how little) thought I put into self-promotion when I was that age.  I should mention his technical mastery compares favorably to that of my 20ish self as well.  To top it all off, according to the photos of him online, he kind of looks like me, or more precisely, a considerably improved version of me.

I hate him.

Specifically, I hate him in brief, unguarded moments, but that hasn't stopped me from offering him my complements.  We'll be trading scores and advice in the future if my usual laziness in such matters (i.e., relationships) can be mastered.  CMU is several hours away from Ann Arbor, but my dream is that he could visit and sit in on a meeting of the Creativity Study Group that I'm organizing.  Wait:  I haven't blogged the CSG yet?  I guess I'll have to--in a future post.

Labels: Composer