"Magnificat & Nunc Dimittis" is my SMU graduate thesis project. This piece is an SATB div. choir, organ, string quintet, and percussion composition. - As of June 2020, This piece was awarded "The American Prize in Composition-Choral Octavos (Student Division), 2019-2020. - Program Notes: When I started writing music, I knew I had wanted to set text from the Bible, but I had felt too inexperienced compositionally and not grounded enough in my faith to be able to accurately represent and glorify God’s word. When it came time to start a thesis project, I finally felt ready to approach God’s word in this way. I had picked these passages because I remembered some glorious settings that I sang in my undergraduate career and the text really made an impact on me. It just so happened that after I decided I was going to set these texts, my wife and I found out we were having a baby. I found this very exciting but I started to associate our baby with this text rather than focusing on the text itself. After our miscarriage scare, I felt it very difficult to come back and work on this thesis. I had eventually come back, continuing to ground myself in faith, and eventually, music started to come out. This process has been a wild ride, but I believe that this is one of the best ways that I can glorify God and his word.