AGE: 43

HOMETOWN: Los Angeles

EDUCATION: Bachelor of music, California State University, Northridge; master's and doctoral degrees in piano performance, Peabody Conservatory of Music, Baltimore

OCCUPATION: Pianist, conductor, composer

MEMBER OF: Trio Augusta, since 2000

MUSICAL ROOTS: "I started piano lessons when I was 7. And I had an older brother who played, so I just wanted to copy him. ... The next year, when I was 8, I had kind of an epiphany that I really loved classical music."

FAVORITE MOVIES: Nuovo Cinema Paradiso and all six Star Wars films

FAVORITE PERFORMANCE: Two-piano concerto by Francis Poulenc, with his wife, Clara Park, and the Augusta Symphony, Augusta State University, 2003. "That was just very memorable because it's a great piece. The audience reception was really, really fantastic."

TV FAVORITES: MONK, House and ESPN's SportsCenter

FAVORITE RESTAURANTS: Calvert's and Bombay Central

FAVORITE MUSICIANS: Leonard Bernstein, Andre Previn, Claude Debussy, Arthur Rubinstein, John Adams and Miles Davis

FAVORITE CONCERT ATTENDED IN AUGUSTA: The Silk Road Ensemble, Grover C. Maxwell Performing Arts Theatre, 2008. "That concert kind of blew me away."