Romance is the first composition I completed while attending UCSB. This composition began my freshman year while I was in a practice room preparing for a musicianship exam. While practicing, I started daydreaming about someone I met the night before, and I played the opening line of this piece on the piano. Once I had that line, I ran back to my room in San Miguel, put on my headphones and just composed for the next couple of days. This was the first time I had what one of my professors describes as a “meta experience.” For the first time, I felt like the music I was writing had a mind of its own and was moving a certain direction without my influence. It was this experience that led me to make the decision to formally pursue music composition as a major.