Rick Reifenstein

It's been very busy at Reifenstein House. My kids are involved in a local stage play, as well as a few sports teams. Seems like rehearsals and practices are coming together as a perfect storm, fighting for time. But the play is a good thing and gives the kids a chance to experience that which was a big part of my life over ten years ago. At one time theater production was my main focus outside music. As fate would have it have also gotten involved by agreeing to be the sound designer and engineer. Of course that's not all that's going on. I am currently writing and recording music for a meditation series by award winning author and leading authority on health and wellness issues Dr. Kathy Gruver. I've known Kathy since college and have composed music for her for some of her other projects. I like the project because it allows me really dive deep into slow evolving and layered synthesizer patches. Something I always have enjoyed creating. Of course I am continuing to w...

March 3 brought sleet and snow to Central Virginia; causing UVA to cancel classes and allowing non-essential personnel to stay home. So I'm using today to get sound cues ready for a community theater production my kids are involved with. It's been years since I put together sound FX for a theatrical production so it's a nice little diversion from the production music I've been writing lately. I have been recording a lot of production music lately. Right now I have three pieces currently in various states of being done. It's typically how I compose lately. I'll work on one to a certain point, leave to rest, while I move to another piece. Then I go back and tweak the previous one with fresher ears. This keeps me from "burning out" on a piece. If your ears are tired, then you can't hear anything new. The recent spark of creativity is largely due to my sample collection getting a nice big boost from some recent additions to the collection. The additi...