Born a native Texan, an alumnus of the University of Texas at San Antonio, and Berklee College of Music, Jack has always had a penchant for adventure, the unknown, and discovery. He has spent the last 38 years on this planet seeking new adventures, working jobs in multiple industries, and building a base of wisdom and emotional intelligence which he says is his “most valuable resource” when composing.

“It took me nearly 40 years to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up,” Jack says, “but I had to be sure it was the right thing!” Jack’s passion for music has been lifelong, starting when he got his first walkman. He continues, “In actuality, I knew all along I was supposed to be doing music. Everything and everyone always made a point to tell me so. And so, of course–I avoided it like the plague.” 

He has always been involved in some musical activity, whether singing for the San Antonio Chamber Choir, community theater shows, in church choirs, or playing handbells or french horn his church orchestra with the rest of his family, or playing piano jazz for diners at the world renowned Brandywine Restaurant in the British Virgin Islands. Even so, it was only recently that he started to take a full time career in music into serious consideration.

Jack has had a broad set of experiences in his life already, ranging from working as First Mate on an 84′ Ketch Sailing Yacht in the charter circuit of the Northern Caribbean, to driving boats and maintaining facilities at a small beach resort, to opening the Northern Caribbean’s first Rum Bar. He has worked in the tech industry for Apple, in manufacturing as a quality manager, and he’s waited tables, tended bar, worked as a stagehand for Anheuser-Busch Parks, as a stage manager for one of San Antonio’s largest Auditoriums, and performed in parades and shows at Walt Disney World. He views entertainment and customer service as one concept–that of providing satisfaction and delight to people.

After exhausting all of his avoidance techniques, in the summer of that year, he accepted a position teaching Music at the Montessori School in Tortola, and finally his eyes began to open to his true calling and path. His passion for music was contagious, and the children at the school excelled in their study of music under his tutelage. He had built a studio of private students, was teaching for the Montessori school, and was in talks with the local community college for a part time position there as well, when the gamut fell. 

There is a price to pay for living in paradise, and that price was charged as one of the most powerful hurricanes to ever make landfall anywhere in the world to date. On September 6th, 2017, Hurricane Irma slowly plodded her way right over the top of Jack’s perfect island paradise, forever changing him, the island of Tortola, and the world. When Hell receded from the place, the residents of Tortola slowly began to emerge from the wreckage to find that nothing had escaped the wrath of the storm. No building, no vehicle, no person in the path of that storm was left unchanged; everywhere was broken. Luckily, 5 Days after the storm had passed, Jack, his mother, and his cat Vincent were evacuated by the Red Cross to Puerto Rico.

Walt Disney was fond of speaking about the silver lining to be found in storm clouds, and the silver lining of Hurricane-shaped clouds, for Jack at least, meant returning to civilization, to academia, and to a new career in scoring for media, after earning his Masters in Film Scoring from Berklee College of Music.