Category: Cory’s Thoughts

They express the myriads of thoughts and feelings we’ve had during this unconventional cultural year that, regardless of where you stand… feels like a test of some sort. A test of new ideas. Of old ideas in a modern world. Of stamina. Willpower. Intellect. Empathy. Patriotism.

Music is a way of connecting and listening to each other. This is important more than ever in our current cultural climate. Last month, I played a show in Silicon Valley in San Jose, immediately followed by several shows in Wyoming — all in the same week. The music and message were the same, and audiences were equally kind and happy to see me.

Purpose matters.

Here is what I found really moving and chilling about Sidney’s video interpretation: What she left out. What is NOT in her video gives the film a whole new and deeper meaning.

Producing Riley Max’s ROY G BIV has been both inspiring and irritating, because I also recorded my first album when I was 17, but hers is better.

Find your song.

People who love what they do are awesome. It is my honor to work with these people, not the other way around.

All the Doctor Noize albums are actually works of musical theatre. I’ve always said that the reason I got into this is kids deserve to learn longform works — things that challenge them to explore the connections between things, and get them to explore their creativity, and think about sophisticated things for more than three minutes at a time.

It’s an honor as a composer anytime a group of talented people — kids and adults — puts on a show based on characters you’ve created. I’m grateful every time it happens.

The theatrical premiere of The Ballad of Phineas McBoof happened when the Palo Alto Children’s Theatre commissioned me to write a musical based on my first two Doctor Noize albums and books. I received the commission for my first stage work for kids right as my own daughters were starting to get cast as leads in youth musical theatre. So I was really involved in that community when I got the commission, on both sides of it: as a composer and a parent.