 I was born in British Columbia and Canada is a wonderful place to grow up in the great outdoors. I got into music in my senior year in high school up until then I'd been kind of a science geek. I studied physics in school. I spent a lot of my early 20s and 30s playing in orchestras all over the world actually in South America and Europe, parts of Canada and the United States. I think one of my most formative experiences was playing in Berlin at the time when the Berlin Wall was coming down. Music really is a universal language. Eventually I went back to school in Cleveland, Ohio, got my master's degree from the Cleveland Institute, which is a wonderful conservatory, and then after finishing that came out to Colorado, immediately fell in love with Colorado that was in the year 2000, so I've been here 20 years. After a while of doing things like performing, there's a sense of wanting to pay it forward. To give them a leg up and to say, here's what worked for me, here's what didn't work for me, try this out, let's find out what you want to be doing in music. Dr. Nidson is a really, really great professor. He is what it looks like to have childlike joy and just so much fun at a professional collegiate level job. Dr. Nidson is the kind of professor who always takes time out of class to pray for each individual student. He's always encouraging toward his students and he always shows them that he believes in them. He is such an expert in his field of strings, curriculum, pedagogy, all the various aspects of making and teaching music. He's a fine bassist and cellist, conductor, and perhaps most importantly he is a Christ-like servant of people. I've been married to my wife Molly for more than 10 years. Molly and I are both avid skiers. She's actually a ski instructor up in Vail. I do a lot of cycling. During the summer, I'll go out and ride 100 miles or 120 miles. Recently became certified as a Tai Chi instructor, so I keep myself pretty busy. But above all, getting up early in the morning, getting my practicing in before my first class and I've kind of tried to keep that sense of dedication over the years. His patience, his kind demeanor, and his corny jokes helped us all through the horrors of Theory 3, but I have really been blessed to study under him. He is a very humble individual and I've been profoundly impacted by his charisma and kindness. He is an incredibly intelligent man and yet he never holds that over anyone. He is so open and warm and he's so excited to share with you anything that he knows that you might need. He is an incredible Christian man. I think the thing about music is that it's an unfinished journey, that there's never a point in which you can say, I've done it, I've achieved what I wanted to accomplish. There's always a sense that there's more to discover, there's more to do, there's a higher level of accomplishment to attain. Music is one of those professions where you have to stay relevant, you have to keep learning, and so I hope my students keep that passion for learning.