Classical music is a love of mine, and making music is another way I follow an idea. This folio is a home for performances, compositions, and musical explorations.
I. / Compositions & Arrangements
Compositions & Arrangements
Original compositions and arrangements, collected together.
In The Muppet Christmas Carol, one of my favorite films growing up, Bob Cratchit (played by Kermit the Frog) says, “Life is made up of meetings and partings. That is the way of it.” It is a remarkably simple line, but one that has stayed with me for years. There is something both beautiful and heartbreaking about that idea—that every meaningful meeting carries within it the possibility of goodbye.
This piece is my attempt to hold both of those emotions at once: the joy of having met someone and the quiet sorrow of having to part.
The opening theme in D major carries a sense of longing, with the melody continually reaching upward, as though searching for something just beyond its grasp. The contrasting middle section, in F major, offers a warmer, more pastoral landscape, inspired by the lyrical writing of Dvořák, almost like a voice singing across an open field. When the opening theme returns, it does so as a gentler echo of itself before the music finally settles on a single octave D, allowed to ring into the silence.
– Will Sams
Composition / Will Sams
L'écho de Nous (The Echo of Us)
Piano trio · First movement · 4:28
MIDI rendering · Piano trio · Computer-generated instruments
This is a computer-generated MIDI rendering of the first movement, not a recording of live musicians. Only the first 4 minutes and 28 seconds are included.
There is something strange about the way people stay with us. A conversation ends, a familiar place changes, or someone becomes part of a different chapter of our lives, and yet small traces remain. A phrase comes back when we least expect it. A moment we thought we had forgotten suddenly feels close again. What stays is rarely the whole experience, but something of its shape—an echo.
L'écho de Nous, or The Echo of Us, offers a way of thinking about those traces. An echo belongs both to what first sounded and to the space that receives it. Memory can feel much the same: something shared becomes something we carry individually, changing a little each time we return to it. The “us” in the title leaves room for the listener’s own people, places, and moments.
For this first movement, the piano trio offers the possibility of a conversation among three voices. Rather than listening for a single story, I invite you to consider what it means to hear something in relation to something else: a response, a resemblance, a space left open. Perhaps an echo is more than evidence that something has ended. Perhaps it is also a way of noticing that something remains.
– Will Sams
Orchestral storytelling / Will Sams
The Boy Who Dreamt of the Stars
For orchestra and piano
MIDI recording · Orchestra and piano · Computer-generated instruments
A young boy dreams of flying—not simply to leave the ground, but to discover the world beyond his own. Inspired by the wonder and warmth of classic Disney and Pixar film scores, The Boy Who Dreamt of the Stars begins with a solitary piano, giving voice to his longing. As he takes flight, the music swells into the orchestra, carrying his dream outward into a world of possibility.
This is a MIDI rendering for orchestra and piano, not a live performance.
Original song: Bruno Mars Orchestral arrangement: Will Sams
An orchestral accompaniment arrangement of Bruno Mars’s Risk It All. With the melody omitted, this version places the focus on the supporting orchestral parts and the musical setting around the song.
This is a MIDI rendering, not a live orchestral performance. Accompaniment only. The melody is not included.
For orchestra and electronics · A cue from the score of HitchHeist.
MIDI recording · Orchestra and electronics
HitchHeist follows an immigrant rideshare driver who unknowingly picks up a wanted criminal fleeing a bank heist that has gone disastrously wrong. As the stakes rise, The Man, The Myth, ... The Dad? accompanies the mounting tension in the lead-up to the film’s climax, carrying the story toward its decisive moment and setting the stage for the finale.
This is a MIDI rendering for orchestra and electronics, not a live performance.
For orchestra and voice · A cue from the score of HitchHeist.
MIDI orchestra · Vocals by Crystal Puente
Music: Will Sams Lyrics and vocals: Crystal Puente
In HitchHeist, an immigrant rideshare driver unknowingly picks up a wanted criminal fleeing a bank heist that has gone disastrously wrong. Their chance encounter draws the driver into the aftermath of a crime he never intended to be part of. Suite Justice accompanies the film’s climactic final sequence, bringing orchestra and voice together as the story reaches its decisive moment.
This recording combines a computer-generated MIDI orchestra with Crystal Puente’s vocals. The orchestral accompaniment is not a live performance.
