1996: A Year of Firsts

Although my writing on this site mostly covers the digital releases I’ve been doing since 2022, technically my releases go back to 1996 when I completed and released my first instrumental composition: a classical guitar piece that was at first untitled, then went through various names, and then finally ended up being titled “January 1996 in the Botanical Gardens of Oxford.” I wanted the piece to be a living document that contains the memory of my trip to Oxford University in England. In the 1990s, I released it in the sense that I had cassette tapes of it made (given as free gifts at the time rather than selling them) and I performed it publicly — the old-fashioned analog ways of doing things before the new millennium brought us this lovely little Matrix we all inhabit together now.

Its composition was at least partially shaped and inspired by a week-long trip I took to Oxford. I still vividly remember the 1000-year-old grounds of Oxford with coverlets of January snow enchanting the landscape as I walked the university town where C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien (and many other notables) lived and worked as professors, scholars, and authors.

In 2025, I found the original recording, remastered it (fixed some EQ and tape audio issues), and released it digitally with a backdated release showing its original release timeframe. That was actually my major music project for 2025: finding all my old pre-digital works from between 1996-2022 and re-releasing them as digital streaming releases.

The cover art for the classical guitar piece is a picture taken of me at J. R. R. Tolkien’s favorite tree in the Botanical Garden in Oxford. It was taken on one of the days and in one of the areas that did not have snow, unfortunately, but I’ve always liked the lighting that this old photo captured.