Regarding the journal entries. I have kept journals since childhood and I have written several passages on music. I would like to share my current entries as well as entries which I made when I was younger;
particularly because many of them were made when I was close to the age of the kids who will be attending the concerts.

September 24, 1992
(entries made on my 19th birthday)
Music is everything to me, my heart, my soul, my love, my anger, my fear, my security. It is my voice. It is through music that I speak, through music that I understand. I have so much to say, so much to express, I must do it all through and with music.

September 29, 1992
Life is so full of mystery. There is so much to find, so much to discover. I want to learn it all! There seems to be so little time to live. You must take advantage of each and every day as if it were your last. Don't let anything slip through your fingers. Seize it while you have the chance. I have so many questions, so many hopes and desires. I can only wait... and keep dreaming...

December 27, 1992
Al you composers of the past, you speak to me as no other is able to, through your music. I know you not at all, yet I know you so well. How you have all grown from each other. I wish to grow from you as well. Your music makes me weep! I listen now to the Andante from the Serenade in C Minor, K. 388 by Mozart. It makes me weep like a foolish child. How the instruments speak, make love with each other, emulate beauty. Where would I be without music? Utterly lost! A girl with no dreams, no hopes, no love. A life with no music is a life of emptiness. How I live for music! I would surely die for its' survival. Please God, help me live through music and please let music live through me!

March 1, 1993
(written while watching a storm through a glass window at my home in NC)
The waves crashed over the dock as it stood, like a martyr, against the storm. The rain beat down against the roof and the windows, collecting on the grass creating a reservoir in our back yard. The sounds around me become like music -- become music. The sounds are colors to my ears. The dark grey of the rain fills the sky. The brown-black trees sway as what is left of the leaves whisper harshly in conversation with the wind. The vastness of the river disappears in the fog of the downpour. The waves add their commentary and are lost among the trees and the wind as together they sing a wild, anxious song. The house seems to apologize for its existence as it creaks against the wind and the lost branches smack against its sides threatening to break through its invisible portals. I long to run out among the raindrops - to sing with the wind -- to abandon the finely polished, vacuumed floors of wood. I long to break through these invisible portals to
allow the wind to reclaim its elements. The song reaches deep down - it apologizes for nothing. Even its arguments are sung in harmony. The dock stands against the waves as an obstacle -- the neatly trimmed lawn an invasion cutting short the flow of the river -- surrounding the trees that reach high for the sky and covering the roots that penetrate the earth -- soil and tree meshing, somewhere becoming one...

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April 28, 1993
My feet are bound to the earth and my spirit longs to fly. To lift up... into the sky over the seas and cliffs. When I listen to music, music beautiful in its purity, my heart is filled with a longing. A longing so deep that I feel far from myself. It is then that I can fly... lift up in spirit with the wind beneath me as my ground. I can stand on air. I can soar. Words cannot describe what music makes me feel. For this pen against this paper is too concrete. The words I can see, the paper I can touch. Music lets me leave that, lets me go to a place where I touch with my heart, feel with my soul, a place where I am happy in my tears. It is the longing in music that makes life as joyful as it is. Music is the closest thing I will ever come to having wings and being able to fly over the cliff.

November 13, 1993
(in response to a conversation with a fellow musician)
What we do -- music -- is so rare and different from what other people do. And we are rare in that very few people have the ability to do what we do. It is imperative now and always, but most importantly now that we work consistently and with conviction. I have concluded that it is better to do something now with conviction and discover later that it was wrong, than to do nothing and forever wonder. As musicians we do not have room to relax our passions. Yes -- it is true that it is easy to get caught up in the 'romantic' idea being a musician -- for that is all that outsiders will see- but having the passion and love are important -- yes -- but not enough. We must do what is needed to become what our passions tell us we must. We must touch the passion through work -- through love yes -- but also and most importantly through work.

February 12, 1997
Music is my sanity. It's both my escape and my reality. I suppose that when I am alone in my composing, in my playing, it's like a breath that allows my heart to beat for a while in this world. I've often wondered why I write... is it for me? is it for others?... and I have come to the undeniable conclusion that I simply must write. I must create music. It gives my life a seam, a border, that would otherwise feel like scattered chaos. Music enables me to see, hear, feel, touch more clearly. If my music -- If I knew that my music could do for others what some music does for me than neither the question nor the answer are necessary. For music has the ability for me to be both question and answer -- it just is and exists for its own sake.

January 5, 1998
Perception makes common understanding nearly impossible. But, oh! How dull life would be without perception!

January 13, 1998
Music is a freedom of body, mind, and soul. Music is an expression of these things, of life, employing a language with no existing translation.

January 14, 1998
• The genius of Bach was that he was able to write both linearly and vertically.
• Music must exist as a multi-level phenomenon.
• Music, perfect music IS and reaches the perfect marriage between intuition and intellect.
• The language of music is a rare phenomenon.
• Music is prayer.
• Neither the intellect, nor intuition can be rejected for truly honest, and powerful music. Music which accomplishes this balance reflects Nature in a most profound way.
• Creation of music is an attempt, an innermost need of the composer to speak of things to the world which cannot be spoken of through words or any other language but sound.

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December 16, 1998
My whole life, I have tried to get closer to music... I have tried to be it, to sing it, to become it. I want to be a vehicle for music... I want to create something great... I want for all of my singing, all of my tears, all of my laughter, everything that I am, everything that I have been, everything that I will and can be, I want and hope that it will all culminate and move towards music... why, why is music so important to me? I love it so much it's as if it's as much a part of me as my blood that pumps through my body. It reaches and touches and nourishes every part of me, both my mind, and my heart all at the same time... May music never cease to move through me until this body has ceased to be... and then even after that, may God grant me music in my eternal sleep...

December 7, 1999 (a letter to myself)
Never hope so much that you always step heavily on the ground. Hope in a way that you're always stepping over the cliff. Off of the ground and into the air. Stay in touch with friends. Be with people. Meet people. Be yourself. Find a home. Love your home, no matter where it is. Love your life, no matter where you are in it. Love your successes and maybe even love your failures. Do not fear the failures but embrace them, learn from them. And do not hate them. Do not expect more from life than what you give to life. And then, never expect more than you give. Always give more than you take and give more than you have. Hope for large things and keep stepping forward, but always stepping now. Don't look back and don't look too far ahead. Yesterday is gone, Tomorrow will come, Today is here now to love and to hold. Live now, live here, Love now, love here. Take each moment as it comes. Hope for things but do not try to live the Glory of the hopes before they arrive. Love the joy when it is yours, but do not cling to it. Let it go as it must and prepare to pass through the gloom. Do not grasp the gloom, but keep your hands outstretched and open and ready to grasp the joy again. And with this, collect each joy in your hands and hold them close to your heart. Collect them as a basket of flowers, as a handful of sweet fruits. Listen to life, listen to love, listen to yourself, listen to the air and hope for the arrival of music. Speak little and hope that your words fall on ears that love what you say. Don't speak arrogantly no matter how insecure you feel. Words will not uplift you. Words can only affect the shell of you but words are external. Security, confidence, hope, and love must live within. These things must touch you within and bury themselves deep within you so that they become the very core of who you are. Do not find the day that you peel away layers, light and passing, and find emptiness beneath the layers. Build a rich kingdom within. Build an empire, bold and peaceful, beautiful and rich. And upon this empire create your music. Be honest. Do not try to create emotion. Be the moment. Be the emotion and let the music speak the rest.

December 8, 1999
It is so important to love yourself. Love everything about yourself. Love your body and your ways, your voice, your faults, your gifts... and then, love others... love others as you do yourself...

April 27, 2000
What is this intense desire to connect deeply with people? Is this what drives me to create? Is this what drives me to write? When I sit and experience my music with others listening as well, I can feel the response to the sounds and perhaps my soul feels a bit closer to humanity... maybe my soul feels a bit closer to love... and closer to love, a bit closer to God...

May 16, 2000
This is my expression. These are my words... Music. Everyone yearns, everyone must be able to express something, to "say" something that someone else is going to share. Life is about loving. We all strive and reach for love. Even pain is a cry for love. To express your feelings, to let yourself be known, to let yourself be shown, this is a gift. To hope that your gift might momentarily set someone free, this is what it means to live. To touch and to be touched by someone, by love, by some expression, by some reaching gift that someone has left, this is to know God... or as much of God as we can know.

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December 3, 2001 -- Questions for Amy Scurria
(This is an interview conducted for an online magazine)

What led you to the piano initially, at the age of eight?
My father plays the piano and I would often sit under his feet as a child as he played. I fell in love with music at a very young age (three years old) and began to find a place for creativity and exploration at the piano. My sister began to take lessons and I would often listen to her practice, memorize what she had played, and sit down and learn the pieces which she was learning. I finally began to take lessons with the same teacher, did not take well to her strict teaching style and quit again after barely a year. I continued to learn on my own until I found a teacher who drew me to lessons again at the age of eleven.

You didn't receive formal training until the age of eleven. Did those first three years on your own facilitate a more creative approach to making music than the average child who begins formal study at first exposure to the piano?
To be honest, I think that my creative tendencies were there and would have been there had I had training or not. I was eager to learn, however, and the structure of lessons actually helped me to channel my creative tendencies. With an open teacher who was willing to allow much artistic freedom in my playing and in my creation of music, she managed to open up a door of expression where one was needed.

Tell us about your early formal training. How did your teachers nurture your creativity?
My first teacher taught Suzuki, and in this style, there was much room for creativity. She was very open to my creation of music and even allowed me to perform what I had created in our studio recitals. My next teacher (I moved a lot being in a military family) was equally as supportive. Upon showing her my creations, she immediately set to work teaching me how to notate my compositions. She was eager to make part of our lessons inclusive of my compositions and her willingness and excitement to hear my creations provided me with confidence and a safe place to explore beyond the reading and performance of music. My next teacher (after another move) was not as lenient and would often criticize what I was creating. She wrongfully tried to force my writing into strict forms and strict styles. My lessons with her often resulted in tears and I soon left her studio finding no room for my composition. My final teacher before I left for college was a composer herself and she dedicated countless hours (often four hours at a time) teaching me piano, working on composition, analyzing works, teaching me dictation, ear-training, etc. She was a wonderful inspiration and fostered incredible growth in me both as a musician and as a young woman.

What composers and pieces most inspired you as a developing pianist?
Inspirational both as a pianist and a composer: Beethoven (especially Für Elise as a very young pianist), Brahms (especially Intermezzo in AMaj, Op. 118, No. 2), Bach!, Debussy (especially La Mer and his piano works),Copland (especially Appalachian Spring), Mozart, and countless others!

Did you listen to much music as a young person, by listening to recordings or attending concerts?
I listened to music constantly. My parents always had music playing in the house, from Spanish guitar, to Flamenco, to Bach, to Beethoven, to Prokofiev, to Tchaikovsky, to Copland, to Debussy, to Mariacchi... I heard it all and loved it all. The only thing that I didn't listen to very much was pop music (until late teenage years) Most of the music I listened to was on recording and although we did go to concerts occasionally, I wasn't able to hear my first live orchestra until I attended Rice University. I knew the orchestra very well at that point from listening to so many recordings, but it astounded me to hear it live!

When and how did you know that you wanted to dedicate your life to being a composer?
I think that I was about 16 years old when I realized that I had to make a choice between my two lifelong passions, flying and music. My choices were between entering the Coast Guard Academy to become a pilot as my father had done, or studying music in college. I knew that I could live without flying, but not without music. Thus, the decision was made!

What aspects of your life have been most inspirational relative to your work as a composer? (I imagine the inspiration you experience is relative to all aspects of your life however.)
My relationship with God first and foremost, my life struggles (particularly as a woman) and my ability to overcome them, my experiences with flight and my love of flight.

You are receiving more and more recognition for your work. How much a part of your motivation to compose comes from this recognition? What has sustained you through the inevitable slow periods and down times?
Elinor Smith, one of the first women pilots who impressed critics by flying under all the East River bridges in Manhattan, claimed that she had not started flying for the sake of publicity but sought publicity so that she could continue to fly. I was born to compose, and will continue to do so until my dying day!

I know you believe all piano students should be encouraged to compose. How should the average piano teacher, who isn't a composer herself, approach composition with her students?
As openly as possible. Students learn everything on their own. The teacher, particularly when it comes to composition, should merely guide and draw out what already exists in the student. Teachers should first and foremost encourage composing by teaching notation, practicing ear-training, listening to recordings together, analyzing a favorite work together, and then encouraging creative expression founded upon the things already experienced and learned.

What would you say to a young person who is interested in becoming a composer?
If you can live without composing, then you need to do something else, and you owe it to yourself to do something else. Composition is not an easy road. You will be hungry and at times frustrated and at the end of your rope, but if it is within your heart to do nothing but create music, than you must decide to never let any barrier, any difficulty, any discouragement keep you from what you know you were born to do.

September 8, 2001
(this is a quote I copied the day we visited Gettysburg)
The muffled drum's sad roll has beat
The soldier's last tattoo,
No more on life's parade shall meet
That brave and fallen few.
-- plaque on the edge of the Gettysburg National Cemetery

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