me and my melodies

Well, the upshot is that I come from a living tradition. I grew up on NZ pop and rock, and that often has a more theatrical or dramatic slant than UK or US popular music. Plus I'm a third-generation musician on my mother's side, so there's a certain degree of osmosis and whatever that comes from hearing a lot of live music as a child, including those Italianate influences. - However, I'm also part of that living tradition of R&H and Sondheim, and Rodgers in particular was a lodestone for me when I was trying to work out how to write really good tunes for operatic voices. Plus Sondheim told me to listen to Britten, which fills in the rest of that picture. 🥝